


i'll tell you my sins (and you can sharpen your knife)

by cakecakecake



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Porn, Character Study, Cunnilingus, Daddy Kink, F/M, Female Reader, Fingerfucking, Gen, Psychological Horror, Reader Is Not Frisk, Science Experiments, Sex Magic, Some kinky shit, Soul Bond, Soul Sex, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:50:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>beware the man who speaks in hands,<br/>for darkness cannot understand.<br/>tell the reaper of your sins,<br/>deny the evil that sleeps within.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if i didn't think i was going to hell in a hand-basket before, well.

The knife nearly slips from your trembling hands.

You've seen that blazing spark before. You can't remember when, or where. Or with whom. It fills you not with determination, but with--

Something. If you looked harder, if you reached _that_ far into the back of your mind--you could probably cry, here, looking at the bright blue flame (He looks like he could cry, too). It's not just frustrating you--it's _infuriating_. 

"hehehe. how good is your memory, kid?" His taunting grin falters for a moment. You take another step forward and he slips a hand out of his pocket. 

You feel like you're going to have a bad time.

*

Maybe it _is_ the jokes.

Maybe it's his perpetual smile, or maybe it's his husky, low hum of a chuckle. Maybe it's the way he shuffles his slippers through the snow, or his near-impeccable comedic timing. Maybe it's how cute and cozy he looks in his jacket, or how much he obviously cares about his brother. He's got a smart mouth, sure, but he never says more than he needs to--and while he acts like he doesn't care about anything, he just happens to always be there for you, in the right place, at the right time. Wherever or whenever you need him, he's there. You're not sure exactly why it's happening, or when exactly it sparked, but you're very sure of these two things: you definitely have a crush on Sans, and Sans is definitely, literally, a walking talking monster-skeleton.

But honestly, truly--there's probably _definitely_ no chance that he likes you, too. Until recently you weren't even sure he tolerates you, let alone enjoys your company, but to your surprise (and delight), it seems you've had it wrong (it's mere wishful thinking to hope you'd be wrong about the other thing, too, though). You consider talking to him about it for a fraction of a second and as if on cue, he's suddenly sitting at the table with you, resting a cheekbone on his palm. You nearly fall out of your chair.

"heya kiddo. you stare any harder at that spaghetti it might catch fire."

He smiles at you. On purpose, intentionally. Being a skeleton he can't exactly _not_ look like he's smiling, but. You can tell now, when it's for real. And it seems like he's doing it a lot lately. (You don't want to consider that it could possibly be because of you.) You fidget in your seat, poking at your food.

Your chair squeaks. "U-um--"

"you're quiet tonight, kid," he observes. "the weird kind. not your usual."

There's a familiar glint in the depths of his eye socket. 

"I--I am? S-sorry I…"

"i wanna ask you something."

"W-what?" you sputter. 

"are you happy here, dollface?"

You swallow thickly. He's never used that kind of term of endearment before (or has he?) and you feel your cheeks almost glow with embarrassment--

"Y-yeah! Yeah, I--I really like it here--"

You're not lying. It really is nice, here, in Snowdin. In this house. With Sans. And with Papyrus--although if you're gonna stay honest with yourself, it's mostly because of Sans. But you're not gonna tell him that. You just shift at the table, twisting cold spaghetti around your fork. It feels like his stare bores right through you. 

"hehehe. well. don't feel like you've gotta run off anywhere then."

"W-what?"

"i mean," he winks, "door's always unlocked for a reason. capiche?" 

Your face grows hotter. It's a really gracious offer, and you're not sure you deserve it, but you manage to spit out a thank-you and drop your gaze back at your plate. When you look up again, he's gone.

*

"our reports showed a massive anomaly in the time-space continuum."

It doesn't hurt as much as you thought it would, when your back slams against the cold marble floor. Maybe the floor isn't really marble, or maybe you're just harder than you think you are. Giant femurs more than twice your height jut upward from the cracks in the floor and you manage to slide across tiny platforms over each one--

"timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting."

You barely dodge an effulgent beam of toxic energy, feeling sweat drip down your neck. You don't know why you feel so surprised that he knows--

"that was _you_ , wasn't it?"

\--about your power to SAVE.

*

You _could_ be on your way to the capital. 

You could be on to the next town, trying to uncover more buried mysteries about this Strange Underground Monster Haven. You could be going back to the RUINS, seeing how Toriel is doing. You've been thinking about her, about taking her up on her offer. You're far too old to be taken care of like a child, but she doesn't seem to mind that--or maybe all humans seem like children to her. You start to wonder how old she really is--and then wonder how old Sans is too. If he _is_ older than Papyrus, or maybe they're twins, or rather how that even _works_ , them being skeletons--maybe they were born of magic?--they both seem to possess it, although you've never seen Sans wield anything magical before…or maybe you have? 

Your thoughts wander round in circles until you start to wonder if you really should be moving on at all. If leaving Snowdin is really such a good idea. If you really _do_ need to get back to the surface. You can hardly remember what life was like up there anyway--you don't think you'd have much to go back to, if you happen to decide to go back. A job, sure, maybe, if they don't already think you're dead or something. A family, not really--you've all drifted so far apart over the years, you were living alone anyway. You can't think of what you were even doing before you wound up here, either--a vacation? A camping trip? Did you really have friends up there that took you to a _haunted mountain_ for a camping trip? Are they worth going back for, then?

You don't even know what exactly you have to _do_ to go back--if it involves hurting anyone, you don't think you want to do it. You don't remember much about your mother, but you know she wouldn't have raised you to hurt anyone--not even a monster. You pull another silly-looking comic book from the shelf in the Human History section in the Library. This one's got a picture of a princess and a giant slime monster on the cover. Aptly titled, The Princess and the Slime Monster. Your face warms up.

So monsters thought about humans like that too. So it wasn't completely unheard of--or rather, it's at least been thought about. Your eyes dance over the shelves--maybe there are more titles like this one. There's gotta be. You've gotta know--that it's not some inconceivable notion, that a monster could--

"princess and the slime monster, huh?" You drop everything you're holding. "hehehe. classic. papyrus used to love that one, but now all he wants to hear is the one about the fluffy bunny." 

"S-Sans!"

"sorry buddy. didn't mean to interrupt your homework, but, i've gotta say. you're studying some _interesting_ subjects, there."

You gulp. You know your face is turning a brilliant shade of fuchsia and you hate it.

"need a study buddy, huh, pal?" 

"U-um--" He's put you on the spot, but maybe you can play it cool-- "I was just--um--wondering about some…monster history stuff--"

"really?" The flecks of light in his sockets flash. "because that definitely looks like a bunch of fairy tales to me."

"Um--" Welp, you're pretty much stuck now. If he's merciful, he'll spare you the humiliation and just let it go, but. The narrowness of his gaze signals otherwise.

"hey, papyrus likes a little romance novel too, nothin' to be ashamed of, kiddo. but i can tell ya that you're not gonna find anything about humans and monsters gettin' together anywhere in the actual history books."

"O-oh…" The muscles in your jaw relax, but it's not relief that sweeps over you. "I…I won't?"

"you sound disappointed," he teases, winking at you. Your lip quivers. "what's wrong, gotta little crush on my brother?"

"N-no," you answer honestly, but your face is flushing all over again. "I just…thought it would be sweet, to read about a monster that loved a human that much."

His eyes look a little sad as he shrugs. "some of us have thought about it. it's a fantasy, for some of us. but nothing past that."

_Have you ever thought about it_ , you want to ask, but you pull your gaze away, back to the little pink book. Back on the shelf it goes, with your childish hope. 

"heya." He's still there, bony hands stuffed into his pockets. "you eat yet today?"

You haven't. Shrugging helplessly, you give him a weak smile. "No, I--I guess I forgot to."

"i figured," he says. "come on, we're going to grillby's." 

*

_"you can't understand how this feels."_

*

It's not the first time you sit together with Sans in the back corner of Grillby's, but it's awkward enough that it could be. Your feet swing back and forth under the table as he talks a little about Papyrus and Undyne, about some lame comedy show on the MTT Network, about this and that. You laugh at his jokes and he seems to drink up your reactions, glancing at you a little bit longer each time your gazes meet--but you don't want to think anything of it. Of course he's glad you like his humor, Papyrus is overall unamused with the majority of his antics, but you--you've got to be like a little sister or something to him. He calls you kiddo, after all. There's no way--

"hehehe. it's good being out here with you, sweetheart."

You start chewing on your bottom lip. Something catches in your throat and you slurp your drink to hide the coughing. It happened again--a term of endearment. He tilts his head.

"what's wrong, pal?" he asks, seemingly innocent. "there ain't no cat here to get your tongue."

"That was bad," you say first, rolling your eyes (but still giggling), "and I'm--I'm good just--"

He looks at you expectantly--he's not touching his food either.

"You called me sweetheart," you start, hoping that it's dim enough in the parlor that he can't notice your blush, but you aren't that lucky. He's smirking like the Devil Himself at a desperate sinner.

"sorry, pal. if you hate it, i can stick to 'buddy.' or 'bro.' or 'dude'--"

"I--I don't hate it," you admit, God it's getting warm around you-- "I just--it doesn't sound the way it does when like…Toriel would call me that, or the Shopkeeper, and…" 

"what's it sound like, then?" The light casts shadows across the face of his skull that would probably really be creeping you out if you didn't know him like you do, but you do, _you do_ , and it's really, _really_ alluring--

"Like you're…flirting with me," you finally say, not noticing how long it took you to answer. A speck of blue light glimmers in his left socket and your heart skips a beat.

"what if i am?"

You hadn't thought that far yet. You wring your hands together in the sleeves of your sweater to keep from biting your fingernails off. "It's-- _really_ not nice to tease somebody like that."

The next chuckle that rumbles out of him is so raspy and predatory you could swear he was about to grab you by the collar and drag you to the darkest corner of the alleyway, but he barely shifts in his seat, tapping his phalanges on the tabletop, amused. The rows of his teeth part slowly, just enough to grant you a glimpse of something blue and shining swirling around between them and whatever it is, it makes something electric shoot up your spine and crawl its way back down, tingling the whole way. 

"oh, sweetheart. you'll know when i'm teasing you."

You wet your mouth, your guts twisting and churning low in your stomach. " _Are_ you?"

One blink, and you feel a pair of arms lock around your waist, and suddenly, the dim lights of the restaurant are replaced with the glowing of the TV in the brothers' living room. The smell of firewood and french fries fades to the odd mix of air freshener and Bone Cologne and you feel something underneath you that's no longer the wooden chair at Grillby's, but it's not entirely the couch either. A cool pressure hits your back and a low, musical chuckle tells you it's Sans that you're sitting on now.

"what do _you_ think?"

"H-How did you--a-ah…ah…" A warm, tickling sensation moves from your back to your neck. It feels like hands, but not exactly--it's so impossibly soft and feathery-light and you know he's not touching you with his bones. Whatever glowed in his skull, whatever that blue flame-thing was--there's a lot of it, and it's crawling along some _very_ sensitive, yet still safe, parts of you. Your neck, your back--some of it crawls up your thighs, playing with the elastic of your stockings, caressing the bare skin between them and your skirt. It's cool and warm at the same time and so, so insanely soft.

"hehehe," Sans mutters behind you, you feel his ribcage pushing against your back-- "if this is too mean, feel free to let me know."

"S-Sans, I…" Your eyes feel heavy. You try to touch the substance, try to guide it around farther up your skirt, maybe tighter around your neck, _but that's too dirty_ you think, a little _too_ messed up--until something slides past your lips.

It doesn't feel _quite_ like a tongue, but it tastes a lot like candy, like a Jolly Rancher or a Tootsie Pop, and it slides across your teeth and swirls around in your mouth and you guess maybe, maybe this is how monster-skeletons makeout. You follow its suit, gliding your tongue across it and you feel his bones quaking. "a-ah shit, uh, wow. you like this, huh, sweetheart? you like getting teased?"

F-fuck, there he goes again--your knees are trembling and you're not sure you can balance much anymore--you've been afraid to pull all your weight down on him but you can't help it now, you have to settle on his lap if he's gonna keep playing with these phantom-things. You want to ask what they are, exactly, but they're making you feel so good you can't seem to remember how to form words. 

"if this is uh, _getting under your skin_ ," he purrs and you don't even care, you feel way too nice to care how terrible that jab was, "i can stop--this is uh, probably not the kinda thing humans are used to."

"N-no please um," you mutter, "please continue but u-uh…" 

"yeah, doll?"

Maybe it's the haze of lust that's making you this uninhibited, or maybe because he's technically giving you the green light to go here, you feel confident, and in your warm dizziness, you find it in yourself to say, "I've been wanting you to touch me for--a really long time."

He hisses, rattling so much he almost shakes the whole couch. "g-god, fuck, then--"

Another apparition manifests itself in the form of a hand-like limb, hovering hesitantly over your waistband while the other phantoms continue stroking the safer parts of you. You look down at it with a fondness--you don't wonder what it's going to do. "Sans…please, please touch me."

"mmm?" He wiggles the fingers of it. "tell me where you'd like it."

You guide the hand up your skirt, moving it into your panties, slipping its and your fingers past the lace and over your folds. Sans is quiet, like he's holding his breath although you're not sure he even needs to breathe--and the fingers slip easily into your wetness, moving in and out of your entrance. You can't see his face, but you feel his stare burning holes in the back of your neck. His voice comes out heavy, thick.

"fuck. holy shit, fuck dude. if i'd had known you'd be this enthusiastic, hehehe…"

The ghostly joints massage your clit with expertise, like this has been done a thousand times before, like this magic has already memorized your body. Sans knows which button to push, and how, with just the amount of pressure you like and fuck, fuck if a human guy or girl has ever known to touch you like this, how is it possible? That a specter of light, a spook from a skeleton could make you melt with this kind of touch?

"god, it's like you're _melting_ around me," he says with mirth, pressing his teeth against your neck. "you gonna cum for me, honey bones?"

A giggle escapes your throat as his little jape distracts you from your pleasure just for a moment, but yes, good God yes you're gonna cum, the energy surrounding your whole being--the magic consuming your very soul--it's gonna make you cum harder than you ever have. It hits you like ocean waves on a shore, overwhelming you, your very existence shaking like it's threatening to disappear. His magic completely envelopes your senses as you climax and it's better than having had a real dick inside you, than having another girl's gentle fingers in you, than any human person's tongue or finger or anything that's ever touched you. God, you thought the best orgasm of your life was Ralf in the hot tub on his eighteenth birthday, but fuck, your young, naive mind was sorely, sourly mistaken. You practically dissolve into goo on top of his bones, the phantom limbs exploding like little firecrackers. Sans sounds just as thrown as you, heaving and huffing. 

He turns you around, laying you across his lap. Pushing your hair from your eyes. He's looking at you in a way that you can't quite describe; like he can't believe it's you that he's got in his sturdy, boney embrace. 

"That's--I-- _that's_ how monsters tease?"

"well, i guess i took it a little farther than that," he chuckles, devious. "wasn't too much for you, was it?"

"No, and yes," you admit, exasperated. You feel like you can't lift a single finger. "I don't think I've ever--what even did you _do_ to me--?"

"a monster's magic is some serious shit, kiddo," he tells you with a grin. "no bones about it."

"I hate you--"

He's winking. "it's a little too overpowering for some humans."

"How do you know?" you ask suspiciously, furrowing your brow. He just shrugs.

"you asked about monsters and humans falling in love, pal. totally different from fucking." There's a darkness in his eye sockets that isn't _just_ it being his sockets, but you don't think of it in the moment. His statement actually won't hit you until much, much later. For now, you're just sighing hopelessly on the couch as he runs his metacarpals along your arm, humming to the tune of whatever music video came on the TV. 

"for a second there," he muses, shoulders jumping, "i didn't think you were gonna make it."

"What, you were gonna let me die?" you ask sarcastically. 

"hehehehe, it'd be a real pain in the patella to explain that one to papyrus, wouldn't it?" he needles and you sigh. "aw kid. i'm not much for makin' promises but. you know i'd never do anything to hurt ya."

Your smile stretches wide across your face as you run the back of your hand across his mandible. "I really like you, Sans."

"that wasn't so hard, was it?" He chuckles. "it's okay kid. i happen to like you too. why else would i tell ya you could stay as long as you like?"

"You really don't mind?" You have to ask anyway. He softens.

"wouldn't offer if i did. plus, you help keep papyrus entertained. i'd still probably offer even if i didn't like ya that much."

You sputter. "Well gee, thanks, pal."

"don't mention it, _buddy_."

"No problem, _matey_."

"sure thing, _friend_."

"Thanks, _Daddy_."

It's his turn to choke on his words. His ribcage rattles so hard you pull yourself up and clip his shoulder-bones. "S-sorry, I didn't mean to--are you alright, Sans? I was only jok--"

"th- _that_ kinda talk, sweetheart," he's got one socket almost shut, "is gonna get you a one-way ticket to the bone zone."

Heat starts coiling in your guts again as you feel your face getting redder, but you still lean in closer to him, a little too bravely. "What if that's exactly where I wanna go?"

You'll never see him grin wider than you do that night.


	2. Chapter 2

"knowing that one day, without any warning, it's all going to be reset."

*

You can't make out much of what San's room looks like when he finally takes you up there. There's a mess of papers in a corner for you to stumble over before he shoves you against the wall, but other than that, you don't care to notice the state of it--it smells like his cologne and the winter air thanks to the draft through a cracked window and that's enough to make you feel safe there. 

He rakes his phalanges up your thighs, biting at your neck, laughing impishly between your moans. Relishing the sounds you make as his phantoms dance around your hips, your breasts, barely grazing your skin. He cups your face with his boney fingers and you don't expect it but he's warm, really warm--you can feel his current of life flowing through his touch although he lacks the flesh and muscle. It's puzzling, it doesn't seem like that should be right, but again, he _is_ a living being. Not the leftovers of a corpse. Of course he wouldn't be stony cold, but it hits you then: you understand so little about him, even after so much time with him and it makes you sad. You're probably making an awful face, because his next question catches you off-guard--

"are you scared?" 

You offer a weak smile. "No--not at all." 

"hehe. you sure are somethin' else, kid." He leans in close enough for your nose to touch the ridges and curves of where his would be. He touches his fingers behind your ear, tucking your hair away, pressing his skull against your forehead. "close your eyes for me."

You do.

It's quiet enough now that all you hear is sound of your own wavering breaths and the whirring of his magic flames. The very tips of his phalanges grace your lips and the ends of your nerves are on fire, searing through your veins and crumbling them to ash. Slowly, you part your mouth for him, and he meets you again with the sweet, eager phantom-tongue--only this time it's not just floating on air. This time, it's like you're actually making out with him--and it's bewitching.

Sans's teeth bump yours clumsily as he runs the tongue over yours, exploring your ardent mouth--he chuckles whenever you giggle and his carpals ghost across your jawline and tickle down your neck and you find yourself pushing your hips against him fervently, grasping his jacket and moaning loud enough to fill the room. You suck on his tongue fervidly, drooling with the flavors of raspberry and lemon--you don't know how he does it but you _love_ it, you could stay like this all night, with this fervent heat festering between the two of you. Wetness is pooling in your panties again and you can't believe how easily he's doing this, how ridiculously horny you're getting--

\--Until all of a sudden, with a pop and a crack, the phantom disappears and Sans is across the room, lounging on the bed with a jaunty smirk, arms behind his head.

"What are you--"

"what? you said you liked being teased."

"W-what!"

"i've gotta say, pal--it's really astounding to me, how eager you are."

Your thoughts race faster than your anxious heart, confused and intimidated and really, really turned on--"I--is it really so surprising?"

"your type doesn't really eat this kinda thing up," he winks. "i'm not used to my talents being so appreciated."

"Well, uh-- _I'd_ appreciate your talents being used to _eat_ me up," you try to joke, and his shoulders bounce with how hard he starts laughing.

"ah, fuck…fuck, you're cute. c'mere sweetheart."

"W-wait, are you--"

He's dangling the tongue from his mouth, elongating it, making it sparkle between his fingers in a vulgar little v-shaped gesture that's _so_ like him. It's _so_ juvenile but just the sight of the slick specter, the mere implication of what he's gonna do to you with it--you're dripping wet. You're so overcome with the dizziness of your lust you barely notice the blue aura gleaming around you when you're being lifted off your feet and tossed across the room, flopping onto the bed.

"H-holy shit? What the--"

Sans hovers over you, pinning your hips against the bed. His grin is wicked, wolfish, like he's really proud of whatever plan he's cooked up in that skull and just can't wait to exact it. He drives his hands up your sweater, kneading you under your bra. Hunger gleaming in his one eye, earnest and raw. He asks you again.

" _now_ are you scared?"

This time you giggle. "Why would I be?"

"because a monster's gonna eat you."

"Oh? What monster?" you croak, quivering under his touch but you wanna keep up with him, you don't wanna just crumble-- "You mean the uh--spooky scary skeleton?" 

"uh huh," he tells you, playing with your pantyline, phantom-tongue leaking onto your bare skin. It sears you where it's dripping and it smells like sour candy. Your mouth waters. "but only if you ask nicely."

"P-please?"

"please what?"

"Please eat me--"

Sans heaves out a laugh, magic swirling and curling around his skull, the tongue gleaming bright. "you can ask me nicer than that."

Your throat dries out as you feel yourself flush underneath him. He's wriggling you out of your panties and you know his sheets are already stained with your juices. Oh Goddammit. You bite your lip, knitting your brows together as your voice sounds much higher than you intended--

"Please, Daddy?"

The snicker that erupts from the monster shakes you to the core. Deep, alien. Resonating from somewhere buried far down inside him. He winks at you, purring as he gently trails his fingers down your stomach, over your pussy, outlining the folds to your entrance.

"that's my good girl."

The specter flattens against your clit and it takes everything in you to keep from screaming hard enough to shake the entire house down--holy fucking shit, did it get longer? Bigger? You don't think it's even in the shape of a tongue anym--"ooh God, oh God, _fuck_ Sans--what are you--"

He looks up at you from between your thighs, grinning madly, like he's just taken a bite out of like, the Apple of Life or some shit. His chuckle is making his bones rattle and you can feel them vibrating and he's totally aware of it. 

"feelin' okay, little lady?" The ghost tongue keeps stroking you, rubbing your clit as he talks and you're totally spellbound. 

"I'm--God, yeah, but I--I don't understand, h-how--"

"easiest way to put it," he replies, the tongue now extending to such a length that you can barely think of it as such anymore (it looks more like some sort of--tentacle? a Not Slimy Tentacle Tongue?), "it's like an extension of myself--my soul, my magic--they're part of me, these extensions. they let me do things i otherwise could never dream of doing--like this."

"J-Jesus Christmas," you quiver--the phantasm morphs before your eyes, glittering as it splits itself in half. The smaller appendage rubs at your bundle of nerves, licking you in little zigzag motions--and the other eases itself inside of you, slipping in and out as Sans bobs his head back down to cozy his skull against your legs. You want to scream, you feel yourself starting to cry but it's a good sort of crying, the kind that's mixed up with laughter and yelling and you honestly can't believe you called the orgasm you had downstairs before the Best Orgasm Ever because this? Holy shit this, This. This is going to be your undoing, you're going to come apart right in Sans's bed if he keeps vibrating this fucking tentacle inside of you, if he keeps leaking this sopping wet Candy Phantom on your thirsty little clit--

"you feel--incredible inside, hhholy shit, you feel almost as good as you sound--"

"Good God Sans, I'm gonna--I can't--I'm--"

"you're gonna cum for me _again_ , sweetheart? holy shit--"

" _Sans_ \--" the throbbing inside you builds up, fuck he's hitting all the right spots, the pressure is so fucking good, you swear you're gonna melt into complete nothingness in ten, nine, eight seconds--

"f-fuck you're getting all tight--"

You're tearing holes in his sheets, your back arches and you feel your back crack and you swear he's drooling, he's shaking as hard as you are--

"Sans, aaah, aaAAAAHH--"

Fireworks go off behind your eyes and you feel like your whole essence of self is being ripped from this dimension--it feels even crazier than the half hour or hour it was before, with Sans leaning over you with that shit-eating grin, huffing and puffing. He chuckles mellifluously, jerking his hand this way and that as the specters drink up your fluids to clean you up and then, with a snap, vanish into little puffs of smoke. Your lungs feel like they collapsed, the air is so shallow around you and you can hardly see straight but Sans is perfectly clear in your vision, the whites in his sockets gleaming in tiny little heart shapes and it's cute enough to make you melt twice. 

"good god babygirl," he starts up and you already know, you already know it's gonna be a-- "is it hot in here or is it just you?"

You flop your head back onto the bed, groaning but laughing. He really is way too cute. "Sans…" 

"you're blushing again," he notices, running his hands up and down your legs. It's soothing. "god you're fucking cute."

"You are," you sigh, pulling him down to lay with you. Maybe it's the weird dim lighting in the room, or something else, but you swear he's blushing too. Shit, he's unbelievable. 

"you uh. really enjoyed that, huh?"

"You're--incredible," you admit, breathless. "God I--I can't even describe it, it's--it's magical. It's literally magic. It's so otherworldly to me, it's--earth-shattering."

His expression softens as he plays with your hair, brushing your bangs out of your eyes. "you sure you weren't freaked out?"

"N-not at all, but," you strain, debating on saying anything but shit, you're already halfway there, "I was--actually more surprised at something else."

"oh yeah?"

"It's nothing crazy it's just--" you take his hand, lining up your fingers to his phalanges, looking closely at all the little bones in his fingers. "You're really warm, Sans. I mean the extensions are obviously, yeah, but--you, like, you as in. You."

"sorry to disappoint," he starts to joke, "but i'm not just a pile of bones, hun. i don't keep it in the same place as you, but i've got a heart too ya know."

Your brows knit together. You don't know why but the thought excites you. "R-really?"

"i'm a monster, dollbaby, not the remains of a dead body," he winks. "i've got a life force inside of me too, but thanks to the magic, well. it just doesn't work the way yours does."

"Can you show me?" you ask curiously, but he shakes his head, still wearing his smile.

"slow down, hotwheels. i showed you a lot tonight. can't ruin my allure by telling you all my secrets, can i?"

"You couldn't ruin it if you tried," you purr, but he just snickers. 

"nice try buddy. you should get some sleep. make yourself comfortable."

He heads for the door and you bolt upright. "Wait--you're leaving?"

"daddy's got some work to do, kiddo," he teases, but you're pouting. "hehehe. no for real, i've got some stuff to take care of, but i'll be back. don't get too bonely without me, okay?"

"You really can't stay?" you whimper, wrapping yourself in the blankets like a burrito. He sighs.

"getting clingy already?"

"I am not," you counter. "It's just the middle of the night, and I worry about you--"

"you gonna worry for a spooky scary skeleton?"

You don't wanna giggle, but you do, but not before you roll your eyes. "Point made."

"see you tomorrow, sweetheart."

"Mm. Goodnight, Sans," you mutter reluctantly. The door to his room doesn't open or close, and within seconds, you see him out the window, trotting off in the snow. You wonder if he feels the cold, and guess he probably does, maybe, and don't notice when you finally drift off to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a smoll update to tide y'all over until the next (bigger) chapter--holy piss?? i was not?? expecting this response? this is the most kudos i've ever gotten on a piece? christ thank you guys wow i'm so glad we're all here in skelehell together :') i'd like to apologize in advance for how sad this is gonna be because i'm sitting here staring at my drafts for the next couple chapters and well. take me to church

You dodge the end of a Gaster Blaster so impossibly narrowly that it misses you just barely enough to singe the edges off one of your pigtails. Another one nearly takes off your left leg, but you're lucky again, and then lucky enough again to miss another--

"seeing what comes next--"

\--honestly, it's almost like he's making this easy for you. If you didn't know any better, you could almost swear--

"--i can't afford not to care anymore."

\-- _he's letting you survive._

*

Sans doesn't come home in the morning. 

You don't get the chance to worry much at first since Papyrus wakes you up with a deafening "HUMAN!! I'VE PREPARED A BATH FOR YOU AS WELL AS SPAGHETTI FOR BREAKFAST, BUT ONE OF THESE THINGS WILL BE COLD BY THE TIME YOU FINISH WITH THE OTHER, SO MAKE YOUR CHOICE WISELY!" 

(You, of course, choose the bath.) 

The water is jacuzzi temperature and it smells like pine needles, almost like you're outside in a hot spring. Carefully, slowly, you sink into the tub, only your head bobbing up as you smooth your hands over your thick legs. You sigh, massaging your aching thighs, smirking at the bite marks peppered across your skin. Oh, yeah, you remember. Sans kinda fucked you last night. 

You lean your head back, sucking in a deep breath, feeling your smugness melt away too fast. He sure did fuck you--and then left right after. (Snowflakes patter against the window and you lose focus on the starry shapes they're making on the glass.) He must have had something really important to do. Right? You're never quite sure when he's supposed to be working or not--he's a mysterious motherfucker (it's about fifty percent of his appeal, honestly). But the last time somebody left immediately after taking you to bed, well. Ignored phone calls and awkward exchanges in the cafe two days afterward aren't a new thing for you, but you don't want that to happen this time. Not with Sans.

You hang out with Papyrus after your bath. You like Papyrus a lot--he needs to take his volume down a good ten fucking notches, but he's sweeter than apple pie and he makes you laugh, although you're pretty sure he isn't trying to. If he's got a heart like Sans says they do, you're pretty sure it's purer and clearer than snow water. 

He takes you to Undyne's place and the three of you manage baking chocolate chip cookies without starting any fires. You get reintroduced to Alyphs, the scientist, and her creation Mettaton (who spends the afternoon sprawled out on top of the piano, feeding himself grapes and basically ignoring the rest of you), and after two hours of possibly the lamest anime you've ever seen in your twenty two years of existence, you ask Papyrus if you can go back to his place. He promises to make you spaghetti for dinner, explaining his recipe in acute detail as you walk together while you feel your worry for Sans creeping back up on you. 

He said he liked you too, didn't he? That wasn't a joke, right? Or a lie? 

Sans would never lie to you--would he? Even just a little white lie to make you feel better? Something to get you in bed? It's not like it's never happened to you before--getting told whatever it took to get you to submit--but Sans would never do that to you. 

You don't pretend to be some sort of expert on monsters, but you know, they're definitely a lot more honest than humans. And Sans--sure, he fucks around, but he's always, always been genuine with you. As much as your anxious heart tries to convince you otherwise, you know he wouldn't say he liked you if he really didn't. He's not great at talking about his feelings, but he doesn't lie about them.

You keep Papyrus entertained through his spaghetti dinner for you and wash dishes for him when you're both done. Sans isn't home by the time you finish cleaning, so you read his brother a bedtime story ("HUMAN! I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THE FLUFFY BUNNY, IF YOU WOULD PLEASE!") and retreat to the couch after you're sure he's fallen asleep. Alphys let you borrow a couple DVDs, so you pop one in and slip into a nightgown and try not to wish you were in Sans's room instead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >bakes y'all a cake that says "sorry bout all the angst the porn is coming back soon i promise"

A sudden warm buzz under your back and the click of the TV turning off makes you stir, but not enough to wake you. The cool glow of azure magic wraps around your limbs and gently, carefully floats you across the living room like a paper lantern across a pond. You don't realize it in the moment, but--Sans is carrying you up to his room. 

In your mind, you're still knocked out on the couch to the tune of the fifth episode of Mew Mew Kissy Cutie, but it's actually quarter till three and you're resting peacefully atop a spread of fresh sheets. Later he'll tell you that he actually did laundry while he was out and you'll be so impressed, but now, now you're in limbo between dreams and awake, barely feeling his metacarpals threading through your hair, his weight sinking next to yours as he props himself up on his elbow to admire you. You don't see the way he watches the twinkling lights from the window dance in little rainbows across your skin, highlighting all the curves and rolls of your figure before looking back at the bumps and ridges of his bones, chuckling at himself. "there's gotta be some kinda medal for this shit."

He presses his teeth against your forehead, nuzzling you for what feels like hours to him. "hehehe. congrats, kiddo, looks like you've done it again."

*

The edge of the blade shines against the blurs of blue gas as you lunge forward--

"f-fuck, uh, you really like swinging that thing around, huh sweetheart?"

\--and then your heels skid to a halt, steeling barely two feet in front of him. Sweetheart. There's a ringing in your ears. You don't even realize you dropped the knife until your fist clenches and you swing to hit him instead--

"hehehe--"

\--but he moves. Of course he did. You knew he was going to. But that's not why you're fucking livid.

"that's the face of a kid who got hit with some shit she didn't expect."

You dive for the knife, but with a wave of his hand, it's fluttering above you, just barely high enough for you not to be able to reach--he points it at you. 

Several more knives assemble behind him, all of them shimmering blue. All of them pointing at you.

But all you can focus on is the crack in his palpitant grin. 

*

Papyrus loudly exclaims that he's going back on guard to watch for humans at seven fucking o' clock on the dot. You launch yourself forward, not expecting to face plant into the Mini-Trash Tornado in--shit, oh shit. This is Sans's room. 

When the fuck did you get up here? You reach for your glasses, but the table's not here, it's downstairs, and you're not downstairs. But you _were_ downstairs. Right? You were passed out on the couch--so why did you come up here? Shit, you hope you're not sleepwalking--although you're pretty positive Papyrus's spaghetti is so potent now it could grant you the ability to pass through walls at this point, so it wouldn't really surprise you. You straighten up your night dress and peek out the window--maybe Sans did come back last night? Maybe _he_ took you up to bed? Not that you mind the couch, it's comfortable, but--

Well shit, if he did come home, why did he leave again? You stumble downstairs to look for your Absurdly Large Purse (as Papyrus calls it) to see if you've got some clean clothes in it, but it's empty, save for shit like your makeup and wallet. You reach for your glasses on the table and notice--there's a little dresser under it, with a sticky note attached.

**got sick of you digging through that ugly purse for your clothes. too lazy to separate darks and lights tho. sorry ;)**

Oh. Well, shit. This--well this certainly is a thing. A good thing. You feel extra bad now for doubting it, but holy shit. He _does_ like you. He likes you. You like him and this baffling bonehead likes you too. You can't suppress the giggling grin that breaks your face as you get dressed, clean up--the warmth from the pit of your gut permeates your whole body despite the cold outside. In your pink jacket and fuzzy boots, you scuffle through the snow and grab yourself a celebratory Nice Cream (the wrapper says, "is this as sweet as you?"). You circle the area around Sans's sentry post a couple of times in a random pattern, like it's possible to summon him. You gasp a little bit when you hear tuneful tittering behind you. 

*

"listen--friendship, it's really great, right?"

(The knives waver in their suspension like flies in a spiderweb.)

"let's stop fighting," he shakes, the white pinpricks of eyes gleaming pleadingly. You ignore the tugging at your heartstrings. "here--i'll go first." 

One by one, each of the knives dissipate into puffs of gas as the yay-high bone pillars sink back under the floor, repairing the marble as they humbly retreat. Sans slowly opens his arms, sweat pouring from his skull. He's sparing you. 

Your knife is the last to drop. It lands right near your feet. You feel yourself laugh.

He doesn't really think you're that fucking dumb, does he?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fluffy chapter to make myself feel better--my cat is going in for surgery tomorrow so i'm pretty nervous about it, but writing this was a huge comfort. thank you all for the kudos/comments, you have no idea how much it means to me!

You can't help but smile when you whirl around. "Sans--" 

He brushes the snow off his post, shriveled up ketchup packets littering the ground. "heya...are you corn?"

Oh, for Heaven. You smirk, bending down to gather up a handful of fresh snow. It’s freezing on your bare hands, but you pack it into a near-perfect little ball—

"because i'm pretty sure you're _stalking_ me."

“Bye.” You aim it right for his skull, but it hits the fake fur on his jacket instead with a “swoosh.” He chortles heartily, thoroughly amused.

“damn, nice shootin’ tex. coulda made me forget all of high school with that hit.”

“I hate this!” you laugh, hurling a bigger snowball at him, but this one misses too. He slides out from behind the sentry and balls up his own powdery ammo. 

“if this is your idea of retribution, kiddo, you’re gonna need to think up some better _pun_ ishments—“

His snowball pummels you right on the ass and you stumble over a rock. He’s laughing as you reach to make another one to try to get him again, but you’re knocked back down and he’s on top of you, suddenly, misty blue ghost-hands pinning you to the ground. It’s cold against the snow, but the magic hums with warmth as he presses himself against you, his left eye twinkling blue and yellow. Your mouth runs a little dry as you feel the icy ball melting against your clammy palms. 

“looks like i win.”

"I hate you.” 

"you're grinning."

"I know I am, and I hate it."

"hehehe. you're hangin' out with papyrus too much."

You sneer, wriggling your hips underneath him. ”What, you jealous?" He lowers his sockets, leering down at you.

"would you think it was cute if i said i was?" 

"Maybe."

"well maybe i am. just a little bit."

Your brows knit together as you huff out an exasperated breath. You'd almost forgotten you were a little frustrated with him. ”Well, what else should I do when you keep disappearing on me?"

He goes quiet for a moment, smile twitching. He obviously didn’t expect you to say that, but he’s still not entirely caught off guard. "i'm sorry, pigeon…listen, being me is uh. a little more complicated than it seems."

"That would be okay with me," you start, "if you'd just explain what that means--"

He shakes his head, running a mitten over your bare hand. "i'd love to, believe me, kid. but i don't know how to just yet."

"You know there's nothing you can do to scare me away, right?" you try to assure him, but he bursts into uneasy laughter.

"it's not about what _i_ can do, sweetheart."

“Sans,” you croak, helpless. The little wheels in your gut start racing against the ones in your brain, winding up tighter as you struggle to fight the color from rising in your cheeks. He's so fucking close and it's so hard to concentrate on anything that doesn't involve him touching you.

"you're a determined kid, dollface—and i like that. but uh…if you wanna be doing more of this—“ he looks your figure up and down and winks, fluttering the phantoms around, “—i’m gonna have to ask you to be patient with me.”

Usually _you’re_ the one who needs a little patience—being on the other end of this conversation is odd, but you smile gently, understanding. “I can do that. I trust you, Sans.”

The white beams of his eyes get a little watery. “give me some time, and i’ll trust you too, kiddo.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got time,” you mutter meekly. “I’m not going anywhere, Sans—I like you too much.”

Sans slips the mitten off. He slides a finger down your cheek, across the curve of your jaw. You forget to expect it and the warmth makes you shudder. "good. because, fuck--i like you too."

"Mmm…you're so warm…" He's sliding his hand down your neck, and then rests it there, at the base. His cheekbones flush a light shade of blue and you think he feels your pulse rabbiting--

"still don't expect it, do you?"

"Sans," you croak, holding his hand in place, "please…touch me more--"

“y-yeah?” he stutters. The specters multiply, several glowing hands now hemming and hawing above you hesitantly, but eager— “sh-shit, out here, right in the open?”

Your vision is getting foggy. You cling to his jacket, pulling him closer, pushing your hips up into him as the ghosts waver. “P…please? I don’t wanna wait any longer…”

“hehehe, shit, missed me that much, sweetheart?” he purrs, wrapping his boney hand around your throat. The grips on your wrists tighten and you’re squirming in the snow, the icy wetness seeping up your skirt, searing against your heated core. “so much you want me to fuck you right here?”

“Will you?” you practically beg, wrapping your legs around him. He grunts. One of the phantoms slips into your jacket and starts fondling your tits, another slides up your skirt, tickling your keen clit. 

“thought you said you were gonna be patient for me,” he badgers you, tongue stretching out from his mouth, dripping at the ready. You groan in delight, pulling on his shirt, _shit_ , your pussy aches just looking at it— “now look at ya, all hot n’ bothered…you’re a bad girl, huh?”

“Yeah?” you taunt, gritting your teeth. Your pulse jumps in your wrists. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

“guess i gotta think of a good punishment for ya,” he muses, scrutinizing your desperate face with doctor-like interest, watching your chest heave up and down as his fingers tap along your neck in a quick rhythm. “erratic breathing pattern, racing heartbeat—“

_F-fuuuck_ , your face and neck flush completely red as the specter-fingers slide inside of you, pumping you in time with the blood thumping in your ears—oh, Christ, it’s so warm, and wet, you can’t help moaning like a starving animal— 

“hhhholy shit, sweetheart, you’re gushing,” he gloats; he pulls the phantom out of you and watches it twirl in mid-air, your fluids dripping off it like icicles from a telephone pole. You whine dolefully, pulling at his clothes again, but he just leers down at you. 

“Are you gonna—stare at me like a science project—or are you gonna do anything about the mess I’m making—“

“oh, baby girl,” he coos, squeezing your throat, “you have _no idea_ how interesting your body is to me—how much i love watching the way it reacts to my touch—“

“Sans—“ you can feel your clit pulsing in aching eagerness. The ghost that was just inside of you is prying your mouth open now and you welcome it, sucking on the digits— 

“taste good, pigeon?” he asks, and you lick your lips. 

“Why don’t you try it for yourself,” you suggest, thrusting your pelvis up. Sans laughs, snapping his phalanges and the blue ghosts vanish into sparkles and glitter, all but the glimmering blue tongue. 

“wasn’t expecting to have dinner so early.”

“If you shut up right now,” you snarl, “dessert is on me too.”

Sans dissolves into chuckles, dipping down to shove his face up your skirt. “noted.” His Tentacle-Tongue devours you with the same enthusiasm it met you with the last time, oscillating inside you, Sans groaning heavily as he grips your thighs. Your screams are lost to the trees crowding Snowdin Forest, snow melting rapidly underneath you as you cum for him, cum as hard as you did the time before this. Sans is absolutely captivated by your orgasm, fixated on your face as your walls clench and shudder around his ghostly helper. 

“sweet holy mother of monsters,” he sighs breathlessly, hearts forming in the whites of his sockets again. He pulls you up into his arms and holds you bridal-style, completely lost in your glossy eyes. “you’re fucking fascinating, you know that?”

“Is that why you like doing this to me?” You’re only joking, but his smile twitches almost upside-down. 

“what? n-no, baby girl, i care about ya—“ 

You kiss his cheekbone, feeling the heat in his face and it delights you. “I know. I’m just teasing.”

“hehehe. you’re real cute, aren’t ya?” He starts carrying you toward the town limits. 

“Don’t you think so?” 

“mmm yeah, you’re lucky i do, kiddo—“

“Oh yeah? Or what?”

“or you’d be panting in a pile of snow right now.”

You toy with the fur on his parka, grinning. “Damn, Sans, that’s _cold_ —“ 

“oh, _now_ it’s okay to make puns?”

“Don’t—shut up and take me home—“

“what did the snowman say to the other snowman?”

“Sans—“

“very _ice_ to meet ya.”

“Sans!!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> looks at the camera
> 
> smiles at the camera

You pounce on him, knife swinging, and he chortles helplessly, moving aside just in time for you to slide and fall forward right on your face. A warm aura envelopes your figure and you go flying across the palace. Your back slams into a pillar, stone and plaster crumbling from where you’ve dented it. 

“wow. hehehe. well. i guess it was worth a shot. have it your way, sweetheart.”

The deep murmur of his voice resonates within you. Your face meets the marble again. You run your tongue across your teeth and the sweet iron taste of your blood makes fire surge through your veins.

You dash toward him, knife at the level of your eyes. You wonder if he’ll bleed when you cut through his bones—and if he’ll taste as good as you do.

*

One last _whoosh_ of wintry air and then in a blink, you’re warm again, safely in the middle of Sans’s living room. Pots and pans are clanging loudly together as Papyrus fixes dinner and Sans slips you past the kitchen to the bathroom. “let’s get you outta those wet clothes, huh?”

He turns the shower on for you. Moving the faucet closer to the “h” side, he winks at you with a snicker. “can’t tell if it’s warm enough for ya, so.” 

“Oh, I can get it—“ you tell him, but he sits you down on the sink counter and closes the door. Locking it. He turns slowly to look back at you with a familiar voracity in his eyes. You swallow a lump.

His voice buzzes lowly. “ya know, all these times i’ve touched you, but…”

You back up against the mirror, holding the sink faucet for balance— 

“…i haven’t looked at you yet.”

“O-oh,” you mumble. That was a new one—something you never really had anyone say to you before. It’s like an unspoken rule—guys (and girls too) love looking at their partners. Seeing someone you’re really into? Naked? Or even almost naked—is really thrilling, enticing. Exciting. Titillating. But nobody’s ever said it out loud to you, or insinuated outright that they wanted to look at you. Naked. Without clothes on. Directly. “Pics?” “Nudes?” “Whatcha wearin’?”—it was always shit like that, never just an honest, simple “I want to look at you.” You feel goosebumps rise down your arms.

“Do you—want to take my clothes off?”

Sans tugs his collar and shakes his head, grin wavering. “y—well uh—look, angel face, if i watch you get naked right now you uh. wouldn’t be getting into the shower anytime soon, capiche?”

Your goosebumps start stinging. You’re suddenly very aware of the dirty melting snow dribbling down your legs and the mud on your sleeves. So you start peeling down your leg warmers— “Well, I mean…you locked the door, so…”

His devious smirk follows your fingers as they trail down your legs. “i did. um—hurm—“

Pink socks and black stockings fall in a pile. “So, I’m taking these gross clothes off.” The steam from the warming shower starts clouding the mirror. You stand up on your bare legs, pulling the sweater over your head—

“you uh...sh-shit—“

Tingles shoot through your veins as you breathe in deeply, arching your back as you toss your sweater on the floor. Your lacy blue bra on display for him. He makes a noise like a cough—you can hear his ribcage quivering. “wow. hehehe…shit…”

You bend over to unbutton your pleated skirt, sliding it down off your hips. Delicately. The bathroom is warming up nicely but you still feel a chill once it falls.

“the water uh—’s not gonna stay hot forever, y-ya know—“

The skirt lands on the rug and you’re left standing in just your brassiere and panties. Both blue, both with attractive floral patterns on them. Ladylike and dainty, not very like you, but. It feels nice to wear nice things. You like your body. You untie your hair from the twin tails, letting your messy waves fall to your shoulders. Sans is making noises like he’s having trouble breathing. (You think it’s safe to think he likes it too.) He starts fiddling with the doorknob.

“tell you what, you uh—enjoy your shower and uh. come up to my room after.”

“Why, so you can make a mess of me and I have to shower again?” you tease, unhooking your bra as you step into the tub. Sans turns on his heel before your tits fall free, his face a luminous shade of azure— 

“i’ll—hurm, _fuck_ —i’ll uh. you—you call the shots, babe, i’ll be uh—i’m going to grillby’s—“ 

The door opens and shuts again with haste and you laugh to yourself, finally slinking out of your underwear. You groan at yourself, eyeing the fresh dark spot in your panties—seeing him of all people get flustered was, admittedly, really really cute. It’s been a while since you made somebody melt like that—it feels pretty fucking good. You’re so used to being the one swept off your feet—it’s cool to feel like you’re the Master Seductress for a change. You revel in your shower, soaking up the heat and soap. You zone out, lost in the soft whooshing of the water—until an odd fizzling noise from the sink almost makes you slip and bash your head.

“Wh-what the fuck?”

There’s some weird droning sound, over by the sink. You pull the curtain back—maybe there’s a bug in here? Or something weird with the faucet? But you hear nothing—but you see something.

You scream, swearing to God in High Heaven that you just saw the fucking Grudge. There’s a horrid ringing for a second, and then a flash of something warped and black in the mirror. A figure that doesn’t look human or even very much like a monster, not one that you’ve seen before—it disappears. Another whirring noise, only now it sounds like it’s behind you. You gasp, but there’s nothing, but you catch something in the corner of your eye. 

A—hand? No, a—the fuck? There’s a fucking—arm extending out from the mirror and you scream again, grabbing a towel and fucking darting out of the bathroom. You glance behind you one more time, just to make sure you’re not totally fucking crazy—and it’s still there, contorted and shadowy. It—flashes? Like a glitch in a broadcasting error—and then vanishes. With one more piercing ring, it’s done. There’s nothing there. 

‘HUMAN!!” Papyrus’s voice is overwrought, he charges into the hallway in his little apron, wooden spoon flailing. “WORRY NOT!! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE COME TO RESCUE YOU FROM YOUR—“

“Papy,” you breathe, clutching the towel around you, “I saw—I saw a—I don’t know what it was—a ghost? In the mirror—”

“A GHOST??”

“It was all black, and it was like—glitching? Like a video game that doesn’t work right,” you mutter, making tentative steps back to the bathroom. You’d left the water running. 

“THAT SOUNDS…FREAKY DEAKY! YOU MUST BE SCARED! I’LL STAND GUARD WHILE YOU FINISH YOUR SHOWER!”

You laugh hollowly and nervously, hopping back into the tub and pulling the curtain. “That’s—it’s okay, Papyrus, I think it’s gone now but uh. That’s really sweet of you.”

“IF YOU INSIST!” he complies. His footsteps shuffle back to the kitchen and you manage to finish your shower in peace. You wonder though, what the ever-loving fuck that could have been, and if Papyrus didn’t know…would Sans?

*

[DARKER YET DARKER...]

[DO NOT LET THE DARKNESS CONSUME YOU.]

*

Papyrus is gone when you finish washing up. You guess he went to tell Undyne about what happened and make a mental note to thank him later. You’re shaken up still, but you try not to freak out about it. As odd and eerie as the Underground is, you haven’t come across anything malicious or dubious, so maybe whatever that thing was is nothing to worry about. Right? Maybe some poor monster guy is lost? Maybe he tried to go home from somewhere and just…got mixed up. Like knocking on your neighbor’s door when you’re drunk. Something like that. You sigh, heading upstairs with pajamas in your clutch. You make way for Sans’s room but a noise stops your fingers from touching the knob. 

You’re afraid for two seconds that it’s That Thing again, but then you listen: groans, grunting—is Sans…here? Either he had a really fast snack at Grillby’s or he didn’t even go at all—is he…crying? Is he— 

“u-uhnnn…u-mmm…”

That’s…that’s not crying. You lean in closer to the door. 

“mmm….uhnn, fuck…fuuuuck…”

Blood flushes up your neck to your cheeks. Nope, definitely not crying. You cover your mouth. You’re caught in the middle of an amused giggle and an aroused moan. Holy shit. Sans is jacking off.

“fuck, uhnnn god…u-uhhhnn…”

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. Sans is really fucking himself. Is it because of you? Did you do this? Your hand dives for your slit, fingers pressed to your clit as you listen more. He’s groaning so much, Jesus Christmas, he’s so noisy—is the door locked? Should you try to open it? Would he be upset? Something tells you he’d get a kick out of being caught by you—what would he do? Would he keep going? Or would he let you take over?

You lean your forehead against the wood. Sans moans, his bed creaking with his movements. You wonder how he’s doing it, what kind of phantasms he’s summoning, if he— 

If he’s got a pretty glowing ghost cock to go with all those sparkling tentacles.

You can’t help the groan erupting from your throat. You plunge your fingers inside yourself, bucking your hips—fuck, fuck that’s hot, that’s so insanely strange and sexy to think about. A Magic Dick, a Magic Glowing Phantom Cock, holy shit that could be inside you right now, it could be you that he’s fucking right now— 

Sans’s moaning doesn’t cease, he must not realize you’re right behind his door—the specters are whirring around, you can hear the sibilation reverberating through the air. You wonder what he’s doing with them, what he’s making them do to him—where does a monster-skeleton like being touched? 

You can’t hold back. Your free hand turns the doorknob and you poke your head inside.

It’s dark in there. You figured it would be. The only illumination is from the phantoms, shining around Sans, surrounding him in the form of several dainty, feminine hands. In the center of his lap, his pelvic area, your fantasy proves to be true—there it is, Magic Glowing Phantom Cock, elongated and shimmering with dripping silvery fluid, twitching in the grasp of two of the ghostly hands. You hold your breath, although you don’t know why, you’re sure he heard you open the door, you know the light from the rest of the house is slivering into the room— 

“h-heya sweetheart.” He breaks the silence. You step into the room, locking the door behind you. 

You let your towel fall.

“you gonna stand there or are you gonna join the fun?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (claps) i hope (claps) i didn't (claps) fuck up (claps) skeletal anatomy too much (claps twice)

“it's funny, hehehe. before this i was secretly hoping we could be friends. maybe even something else. you know, like old times.”

You miss. As expected. The giant bones bust through the walls and you’re surrounded by Gaster Blasters again. You slide this way and that, narrowly missing the toxic beams, the sound of “sweetheart” still poisoning you. It feels like something deep in the pit of your stomach is trying to claw its way out, but you keep fighting. 

You have to keep fighting. You’re very determined. You’ve made your choices, and you’ll see it through to the end. You ignore that woeful look in his eyes and clutch your knife for dear life.

He can’t keep dodging forever.

*

If it were possible for someone to eat you just by looking at you, Sans would have devoured you by now. The floating hands dissipate in a flash, but his Glowing Cock-Tentacle still remains, twitching and leaking as he leans back on the bed, eyes alight with a lust that could rival Pan himself. He can’t seem to read your face, either it’s too dark or you’re just too stunned—he looks down at his glowing appendage, and then back over at you. His ribcage is rising and falling rapidly— 

“this uh,” he starts, voice cracking, “this making you uncomfortable?”

You’re pulled from your trance. You step forward in apprehension—you can’t seem to swallow the lump in your throat.

“S-Sans…you…you have a…?”

“i summon a foot-long tentacle that _vibrates_ to eat you out, and you’re tellin’ me _this_ surprises you?”

“W-well, no I just—“ Your heart is beating so fast you feel faint. “Did you—were you—?”

“masturbating?” he finishes for you. “monsters g-gotta relieve frustrations too.”

You kneel before him, looking up at his face dolefully. “I—I could help you with that, you know.”

He seems taken aback. “y…really?”

“Y-Yeah,” you assure him, smiling meekly. “Did you think I was gonna leave you hanging?”

Sans tilts his head. “you really wanna…?”

“May I?” you ask politely, nodding your head eagerly. You rest your hands on his kneecaps and he’s smooth and warm to the touch. He shivers a little.

“hehehe, well uh…if you’re sure…”

You grab your towel, rolling it up to make a little cushion for your knees. You take the bra you’d left on his floor the other night and thread it between his radius and ulna on both arms, tying them behind his spine. He studies your face curiously, his grin unfaltering, like he’s hooked on edge. He’s dying to know what you’re going to do, but he won’t ask. You resume the position on your knees once you’re sure he’s gonna keep his hands where they are—you feel submissive, but the inconsistency of his breathing and the sweat dripping down the side of his skull tells you he’s the one at mercy here. You’re in control of this unearthly, alien, extrinsic phantasm before you, and it fills you with determination. 

“I want you to feel good, too…” You bow your head down and slowly, cautiously lick the specter from base to tip. Sans makes an unintelligible sound, like he wants to scream but absolutely can’t afford to— “Daddy.”

“f-fuh-huh-huck, baby girl…”

He’s squirming, trying to thrust forward into your mouth, but you grab his neck in warning— “Shh. We’re gonna go slow. I want you to see how much I like you…”

You trail your hand up to his face, touch the ridges under his eye sockets. If he had skin, he’d probably have the same terrible bags under his eyes that you do. You smile, passing your trembling fingers along his mandible, watching his teeth chatter. Your heart fluttering as you notice how much he’s shaking. “Your body is fascinating to me, too, Sans…” 

You press a kiss to his clavicle and he almost whines, cock thrumming as you touch and prod at each one of his ribs. You slide your arm up into the cavity of his chest, slowly, rubbing along every bone on your way and if he could cry you’re sure he’d be in a mess of tears right now— 

You stop behind his sternum, drumming your fingers along his bones. A little more to the left. You feel your wetness dripping down your thighs. 

“This is where your heart would be,” you muse. Sans is breathing so irregularly he makes himself choke. 

“d-did you get an a in anatomy?” he stutters, “because you don’t miss a beat—“

“I’m sure _you’d_ be missing several,” you tease, kissing his ribs, “if your heart worked like mine—“

“f-fuuuck—“ 

You finally grip his glowing member, the oozing silver goo coating your fingers as you slowly start to pump him. He gazes down at you helplessly, wriggling his arms—he could probably get out of your poor bra-tie-job if he _really_ wanted to, but it seems he wants to humor you. He _wants_ to be tortured, and that makes it all the more arousing for you. You taste the shining fluids—like candy again. A familiar flavor of raspberry tickles your tongue. Sour and sweet. You start sucking at it, licking at all the curves and bumps of the Tenta-Cock and relishing Sans’s raspy grunts and moans. 

“sh-shit, sweetheart,” he huffs, trying his best to stay still. You grip his pelvic bones, flattening your tongue against the phantom, running it up and down the length of it before seeing how much of it you can take all at once. Sans hisses, your warm mouth hugging his member.

“i’m—fuck, i’m—“

You use your hands again, stroking it hard, squeezing it between your palms— “Is this alright? Does it feel good?”

“th-that feels— _awesome_ —don’t—don’t stop, s-sweetheart—“

“Are you almost there? Are you gonna cum for me?” you ask shakily, confident—

“sh-shit keep—keep talkin’ to me—and i’ll—“

You blush—your monster friend is coming undone in front of your eyes, there’s a fire of pride in your chest. You say the first things that come to mind— “What should I say, Daddy?”

Sans is turning blue from skull to toe. He’s laughing, shaking almost violently, quivering as his cock pulses arrhythmically— “hehehe, fuck, kid, you’re gonna—fuck you’re gonna—“

“Gonna what,” your voice falls just above a whisper, “are you gonna cum for me, Bone Daddy?”

“hhhhn—fuck, you—“ He arches his spine as you suck, harder, tightening your lips around the cock, bobbing your head a few times before switching back to your hands— 

“C-Come on, Sans, please cum for me,” you plead, you’re not so good at this dom-thing but he doesn’t seem to mind— “sh-show me that I—I’ve been a good girl.” 

“h-h-hehehe—aaaahhh, a-HHHHHH, ha…ha,” he looks down at you, bucking his pelvis forward. “y-you’ve been—a _really_ fucking good girl, sweetheart—“

You take him in your mouth again—the Tenta-Cock is bloated and throbbing, you know it’s coming soon—you’re so proud of yourself, you’re gonna let him coat your throat in his raspberry-flavored cream— 

“i hope you’re—you don’t have to swallow but—i made sure it’ll taste nice—“

You keep him wrapped up inside your mouth, proudly sucking away. You’re determined to make him feel as good as he’s made you feel—and you know it’s not gonna taste like that sour disgusting shit that human guys cum, so you brace yourself, remembering to breathe through your nose so you don’t choke. You got this, you’re his good girl and you’re gonna take whatever Sans gives to you— 

“i’m—i’m—“ 

It happens. Warm, fruity fluid shoots into your mouth and down your throat, like melted Starbursts—you swallow most of it, some dribbling down your chin, but before you can wonder what you can wipe yourself clean with, it vanishes into thin air. Sans falls onto the bed, breathless and ragged, the Magic Cock now a puff of smoke and sparks. You climb on top of him and wriggle your bra out from between his bones. 

“hehehehe. well shit.”

“Was that alright?” You have to make sure. You move to pick up your towel and wrap it around you, but Sans stops you.

“don’t—don’t cover up yet, please?” 

You giggle helplessly, nervous a little. “S-Sure.” 

“if you’re cold, come closer…”

Laying on top of him sounds like a bad idea in theory, but again, he’s not the hanging skeletal diagram of your fifth grade classroom. He wraps his arms around you and your breasts mold against his ribs—it feels a little funny, but he’s very warm. 

“Did you really not expect me to wanna spoil you too?” You ask, concerned. Sans is closing his eyes. 

“you’re usually too nervous or afraid to,” he answers, and then quickly adds, “you humans, i mean. i’m not used to your confidence. ’s new to me.”

“Do you like it?”

He leans up to wink at you. “that, and a lotta other things, you kinky kinkster.”

You laugh bashfully, biting at your finger. “Is uh—the Daddy thing too much?”

Sans considers you, his wicked grin unmoving. “you kiddin’? i love that shit. you can talk as dirty as you like, sweetheart. plus i uh—may or may not be really into callin’ you my good girl.”

You bite your lip. “C-Cool. I um. Really like being your good girl.” 

His teeth press against your forehead. “good. keep being a good girl for me, then.”

*

/STAY FOREVER, STAY FOREVER~/  
/WE’LL BE BEST FRIENDS FOR NEVER~/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i need to take a shower


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no boning this chapter sry sry
> 
> instead you get spooky shit! 
> 
> (yes it's gaster, of course it is. i absolutely love him so look forward to more of him too)

Golden sparks fizzle and fly around the SAVE point by the inn. You press a finger to the center of your SOUL, blazing red in your palm. It’s been a while. You SAVE and CONTINUE, starting back at where you yesterday, right before you went to go look for Sans around his post. You look at the time on your phone: 5:37PM again.

But Sans isn’t where he was. 

You meander around the post, brushing the snow from the wood, knocking over empty plastic bottles of ketchup and mustard. It didn’t take long for him to show up before, but things don’t always play out exactly like they did the last time, so you head toward the library. Read a little and catch up on your UnderNet notifications to kill time. You were hoping to get felt up out in the forest again, hoping that maybe this time Sans would actually join you in the shower (and that the Creepy Shadow Thing wouldn’t show up), but you don’t get so lucky. You spend a couple hours boondoggling around the town until you figure he’s not showing up, and head back to the house disappointed.

“Papy,” you call out, stamping out the snow on the door frame. “You back yet?”

No answer. Looks like they’re both out, still. You take off your boots and jacket and head upstairs to Sans’s room. As expected, he isn’t there. You pick up the dirty clothes you’d left on the floor a couple nights ago, considering doing a small load of laundry—and you see something shiny peeking out from one of your pockets. 

Huh. It’s a key.

To what? 

You pick it up, an unfamiliar weight to it. It doesn’t look like any of the keys you brought from the surface, so it’s gotta be a key for something here. Did Sans give you a spare key to the house at some point? You run outside quickly to test it out. You’re gonna feel really fucking dumb if you’re wrong and you lock yourself out, but at least neither of the brothers are particularly hard to find to let you back in. You lock it and then stick the key inside and—well, you giggle to yourself. Yeah, that was fucking dumb. The knob won’t budge. But it does almost-fit, so you guess it’s a key for something else in this house—but to what?

You try the garage, and it doesn’t work—Papyrus probably has the only key to it. You make a circle around the house, looking for a lock on one of the windows and—oh. 

There’s a door. On the side, near the back. You’ve never noticed it before. 

You go up to it and jiggle the knob. Yeah, it’s locked, go figure—but the key fits. 

And the key turns.

Well then. What the fuck is in here?

You carefully creak the door open, meeting with pitch darkness. You feel around the walls and hit a switch—the lights flicker on. You step on purple tiles with your slippers and close the door. It smells…odd, in here, sort of like a hospital. That weird, chemical-cleaning-product smell. It makes you a little uncomfortable, but you’re bewildered—is this the basement? It’s not the kind of basement you’d expect Sans to have—it’s really small, and almost empty, save for some papers on a counter. There are four cabinets and a—a really huge tarp covering something up. You’re hesitant, but you go up to it.

You peer under the cover—it looks like a giant photo booth, big enough that somebody could step inside. You feel weird about it, but you’re really curious, and you’re pretty sure that whatever it is, it’s broken, or at least unactivated. It should be safe to get a closer look. So you step into it. 

There are dozen of buttons and switches in all different colors, none of which are labeled. Wires and hatches are open and hanging out here and there—maybe this machine was finished at some point, and then fell apart? Or maybe it was still being built? It’s hard to discern. There are three tiny screens, all black except for one, right at eye-level, blaring a red “ERROR” message. You fiddle with the buttons near it and, to no surprise, nothing happens. You frown, stepping out of it, wondering what the fuck, what even is it supposed to be? And why the fuck is it in Sans’s house? 

You look to the papers on the counter for an answer, maybe. They look like blueprints, all mapped out in some…odd handwriting. Funny, it almost looks like— “Wingdings,” you half-laugh to yourself, running your hands over the sheets. Maybe—maybe these are instructions for the machine? You really can’t tell. You set them aside and pull open the drawers. 

More blueprints. Packets and packets of them, all scribbled in that indecipherable gobbledy gook. You chew on your bottom lip, wondering who could have written these out; if they were written like this on purpose, so that nosey people like you couldn’t read them and fuck with their shit. You glance at the machine again, nerves surging with wonderment. You imagined old trinkets, maybe Papyrus’s baby toys, old puzzle pieces to be down here—normal things (well, as normal as things can be for two skeletons to keep in their basement). Not…heavy machinery. Not these weird blueprints. You feel your guts knotting up—is this where Sans disappears to all the time? When he says he’s working…does he mean he’s working on that thing? This place looks more like a room in Alphys’s lab than a storage space…Sans couldn’t be…?

Your pulse races as you quickly draw open the cabinets, expecting to see more weird contraptions, some odd electronics, but— 

They’re empty, nearly, save for a handful of photos. You pick them up, studying them— they’re of Sans, with other people you don’t recognize. Monsters and— 

…and humans.

Your hands start shaking. He looks happy. He’s with another woman in some of these—and he’s smiling (for real, on purpose, intentionally), but not all of them are with her. There’s a guy, too, who doesn’t look much older than you. And a child with oversized glasses, who looks really small. A little girl in a tutu. And another kid. And—

And a young girl, whose smile strikes a chord with you. She's in a green sweater with a yellow stripe across the middle, big golden locket dangling from around her neck. A scratching feeling at your throat starts to bother you the longer you look at her. Her face...looks very eerily like yours. Something about the eyes. Her haircut looks exactly like one you had when you were really young. God, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think she _was_ you, the resemblance is uncanny. She’s holding Toriel’s hand, and standing next to someone who looks like he could be—Toriel’s kid? You didn’t know she had a child…she never told you that…You don’t know why, but your eyes are burning with tears—her face…this young girl’s face seems like it’s looking right back at you through the photo and you— 

/ARE YOU SCARED?/

The photos fall to the floor. You whirl around—the machine is whirring, emitting steam and shaking violently— 

“What the f—“

/COME HOME CHARA~/  
/I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER~/  
/BEST FRIENDS FOR NEVER~/

You’ve gotta get out of here. Now. You throw yourself at the door, but it’s fucking locked—holy shit how the fuck could it be locked? You wrestle the knob, the machine still making god-awful clanking noises— 

[DARKER, YET DARKER]

—it’s not the same voice. It’s something you heard just hours before. Many times before—the voice from the bathroom. From a room in Waterfall several RESETS ago, from a foggy, bright room— 

[DO NOT LET THE DARKNESS CONSUME YOU]

—you start crying. You know it’s here, the blotched figure of inky blackness—you don’t have to turn around to know. You don’t want to see it. You manage to pry the door back open and you slam it shut, hoping to God or Whoever Upstairs that nobody heard all of that ruckus, especially not Sans—you run around to the front and sink against the window, holding your knees to your chest.

 _Fuck_. You try to steady your breathing. You’re terrified, but you probably deserve it, to be honest—snooping around like a delinquent, poking at shit that’s very obviously not meant for anyone to see—but you did have a key to that room. How the fuck did you get that key? You know you didn’t steal it, you would never steal anything, especially not from Sans or Papyrus. But you definitely don’t remember Sans ever giving it to you…but there _are_ a lot of things you don’t remember about past SAVE files. It’s not impossible that he’d given it to you on a previous run.

But it also means that it’s not impossible that you took it. 

You clutch it so tightly in your hands it leaves a mark in your palm. Your phone vibrates in your pocket and the noise makes you almost piss yourself.

**be home later tonight. don’t get too bonely without me. ;)**

You shiver, knowing full well that you need to tell Sans what happened, but you’re not ready to. It’s stupid, but you’re scared. You don’t want him to be mad at you for sneaking into his stuff—but you also don’t want him to think you’re fucking crazy for thinking that somebody’s after you. Who the absolute _fuck_ is talking to you through fucking walls? And is there more than just one person now? You’ve heard one of the voices before—and that alone bothers you enough, but today you heard someone else, too. Someone young, a voice completely brand new to you. How the fuck do you explain this horror movie shit to him without sounding completely nuts? 

You sigh, and then the lightbulbs in your head come on. Fuck, duh. There’s one person you know who’s definitely seen some shit, somebody who definitely isn’t gonna think you’re losing it—you feel a little awkward, and a little apprehensive, but you think it’s worth a shot— 

_Ring…Ring…_

You half-expect her not to pick up, but your chest swells when she does.

“h-h-h-hello? o-oh it’s—it’s you?”

“Hey, Alphys,” you croak, finally standing up. You start walking. “Um—can I come talk to you?”

*

“sometimes, you just gotta know when to QUIT.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i've rewritten this chapter like five times before i decided which direction i wanted to go and the funny thing is i'm still not 100% but i like it way better than my first couple drafts ahuhuhu

“m-m-machine?”

Alphys trembles in her oversized lab coat. You lean back in your chair, watching the lizard woman shuffle files and folders across her desk as you blow on your instant noodles. Mettaton lays resting atop an operating table, humming peacefully in low-power mode, his left eye flashing intermittently to signal his sleep.

“It’s huge, Alphys,” you tell her. The steam rises and curls up your nostrils and you feel a little calmer. “It looks like—like a shopping mall photo booth on steroids? There’s all kinds of weird switches and screens, and it kept flashing an error message—”

“i s-s-see.” She fidgets, eyeing you curiously, wringing her hands in an anxious knot.

“It was shady of me, to go snooping,” you admit to her quietly. “He probably keeps it locked up for a reason, but… Alphys…when I was down there, I heard voices.”

“v…voices?”

“Two of them,” you tell her. “But the scary thing is...I know I’ve heard one of them before. But I can’t fucking remember where.”

“w-w-what does it tell you?”

You stare up at the ceiling, nervous and apprehensive, knowing this will sound insane once you say it out loud—but if you can’t tell her everything, then what was the point in coming here? You breathe in slowly, smiling half-heartedly at her. Alphys is really the last person you need to be embarrassed in front of—she understands. “'Don’t let the darkness consume you'.”

Her jaw falls open. There’s a light in her eyes that you’ve never seen before, that you can’t quite read. 

“the d-d-darkness…”

“I don’t know what it could mean,” you continue. “I don’t know who it could be—but I know I’ve heard the voice before. I know I have. And I dunno how to tell him without sounding like I’m—“ 

“crazy?” she finishes for you, big teeth peeking out of her awkward and apologetic grin. You sigh, nodding. She keeps scuttling around, thumbing over books and catalogs. “i know how you feel…heh heh, believe me, i…well. well i’m really n-n-not the best at giving advice—or following my own, heh heh…but you've got to tell him what’s happening to you, it could be d-d-dangerous.”

You stare into your noodle cup, suddenly realizing. She’s definitely right. Alphys flips through the folders in another filing cabinet.

“when you said, ‘the darkness’…” her voice trails off as she picks up a white folder. It’s a thin packet, but the labeling on the side—you feel the blood in your veins run cold.

“A-Alphys?”

“t-t-tell you what,” she starts, uneasily, “there’s a few things i need to…i think i could give you the answers you’re looking for, but first i…i n-n-n-need you to tell sans. i would need his help.”

“Sans?” you repeat, confused. “Alphys, does he—?”

“it’s partly because you owning up to something too gives me a little c-c-c-courage,” she admits, furrowing her brow, “and it’s also because—well—it’s not entirely my story to tell, it’s…it’s his, too.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, staring at the white folder in her clutch. You don’t wonder whether or not she can understand the handwriting. 

“i know it must be hard,” she starts sadly, turning away from you, “after what i did to you with mettaton—i’m not the easiest person to trust, heh…”

Frowning, you reach for her shoulder, but she shrugs, smiling feebly at you. “i know you’re frustrated, but…i feel like it wouldn’t be right, for me to be the one to tell you everything…”

“N-No, it's okay,” you say, trying to understand. “I’m not—I mean, I wanna thank you, for listening—“

“o-oh it’s no p-problem,” she assures you. “c-c-come back when you’re ready and—and hopefully i’ll be ready, too.”

Silence falls between the two of you, exchanging awkward smiles as Mettaton hums softly across the lab. The uneasiness is making you regret eating those noodles. You feel almost sick with anxiety, but you have the gut feeling that whatever’s happening to you is affecting more people than you know, so you’ve really got no other options here other than to do what she advises. She knows something, probably more than you’re asking to find out—but the scarier thing is the Very Probable Possibility that Sans knows that something too.

You gather up your Absurdly Huge Purse and a couple extra cups of instant noodles and make your way out of the lab, but right as you touch the door handle— 

“…gaster.”

Frozen on the spot, you glance over your shoulder. Alphys isn’t talking to you, she’s looking at that folder, glasses sliding down her snout. She looks pale. (You feel the color draining out of your face, too.)

Gaster.

*

“cuz y’see…all this fighting is uh. really wearing me out.”

He’s sweating so much it’s almost like he’s melting—he’s so tired. He knows he can’t beat you—so he’s got you confined in a prison-box of bones. Locked up in an estranged version of a child’s timeout. You try to cut down the bars, but your knife can’t even make a scratch on them. 

“hehehe…you remember how easy it is to kill me, don’t you sweetheart?” 

You snicker. You don’t need to * Check—you remember. You came into the fight remembering—1 HP.

“i know,” he quivers, “i know you do. one of your turns, my luck’s gonna run out—and you’re just gonna kill me. ain’t that right?”

You rattle your cage like it’s gonna make a fucking difference, seething as he buries his hands deep in his pockets. His eyes are drooping. 

“so uh—we’re just gonna stand here, until you figure out that the only way outta here is to QUIT, geddit?”

Breathing is starting to put a strain on your lungs and it’s not because you’re exhausted or frustrated. You start chewing the skin on your fingers, staring back at Sans. He’s swaying on the spot, like it’s getting hard for him to keep standing up. 

“you’ll get bored here,” he taunts you, yawning. “bored…and tired…” 

He’s falling asleep.

*

You heat up another cup of instant noodles when you get back inside. It’s getting late, it’s past dinner time, but the house is still empty. You check out the kitchen window and see Papyrus making snow angels with the kids around town. _Cute_ , you smile to yourself, settling on the couch. You zone out to Prime Time on MTT (Mettaton is doing a special on classics from the surface; “NEXT UP, HITS BY THE SUBLIMES, COLE NAT KING, AND HANK PAULA!”), realizing all too late that you’ve lost your taste for these noodles but you eat them anyway. You don’t want to chance going to Grillby’s and running into Sans when you’re not quite ready to talk.

You wonder how late he’ll be coming in, if maybe you can pretend you’re asleep on the couch so you don’t have to say anything yet. Maybe you can spend the night at the inn instead, think everything over, rehearse how you’re gonna word it all. Maybe the library has something that could help you in figuring out what that machine is for, if a book or two there can tell you something about Gaster.

_Gaster_. You sink into the cushions, hearing the loose change sifting around in the springs. _Gaster_. You say it out loud, softly, like a little prayer. It feels like you’re calling to somebody who hides in the walls, like an imaginary friend. It’s an airy, breathy name, familiar and comforting. You can’t picture anybody in your head, but you feel like it belongs to a man. Alphys said it with such wonderment, like it gave her the same feelings—it _has_ to be whoever created those blueprints, and probably whoever designed that machine. It must be someone she knows—or knew. Someone Sans knows. But who?

Purple curtains draw aside to reveal Mettaton swaying in a sparkling red dress on the broadcast. You’re barely paying attention as he starts singing a song you haven’t heard since you were little, one that you’re pretty sure your grandparents really liked— 

_Unforgettable_  
That’s what you are  
Unforgettable  
Though near or far-- 

—and then the picture suddenly whites out. You jerk upright, startled, but you can still hear the program—the audio is still coming in clearly. You get up and fiddle with the antenna—maybe the signal just got caught up. The picture goes back to normal so you sit back down, but the screen glitches again. Mettaton goes on singing, but the screen flashes between his performance and—

“No fucking way—“ 

—a figure. Cloaked in black, face white as snow. Gaping black holes staring through, right at you. You can still hear Mettaton— 

_Unforgettable_  
In every way  
Unforgettable  
That’s how you’ll stay-- 

—but the broadcast is completely fucked. A horrendous buzzing noise like a hundred wasps explodes from the television. The lights in the house flicker on and off—the kitchen sink starts running water and a pool of dark fluid spills from under the bathroom door— 

_That’s why darling, it’s incredible—_

—the image flashes back to Prime Time, and back again to the figure--it seems to be melting, a grey slime pouring from the craters of its eyes— 

_That someone so unforgettable—_

—you don’t want to get close to the TV, you can’t bear to look at that thing up close—so you fumble with the remote, trying to change channels. Turn it off, anything, but none of the buttons respond. Electric sparks fly from the antenna as the buzzing finally halts. The screen goes to static—black ooze drips from the bottom of the screen.

[THINKS THAT I AM UNFORGETTABLE TOO.]

The picture flashes off. You drop the remote as the sink water shuts off in the kitchen. The black liquid has stopped flooding the bathroom—it looks like it was never even there. Tears drip down onto your shirt and you finally notice you’d started crying. You almost fall backward into the couch when you hear Sans’s voice from behind you— 

“you know, sweetheart, i'm thrilled you got to meet the old man but uh. i'm sorry that it had to be like this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does mettaton not care enough to get human celebrities names right or do i just wanna avoid cheesy name dropping?   
> do i really think gaster is skeledad or do i just like the thought of sans calling him the old man even tho he's probably just as old?  
> am i devoting too much time to developing a shitty little plot or is this actually working?   
> tune in next time for more angst and porn


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "it's okay, sweetheart. i know you know his name."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the backstory chapter that nobody asked for (poses dramatically)

Finally.

Now’s your chance. 

You shove your cage further to the left, inching along, watching the ZZZs hover over his head. It’s one shot, and then you can move on. You reach your knife and slowly, cautiously advance on him, swinging your blade high over your head—just one strike and— 

—and he wakes up.

“hehehe, did you really think i—“

—so you strike again and—

And he seizes your wrist. You knock him flat, but he's resisting, your knife centimeters away from his glowing blue eye. 

“after all these times…you really think i wouldn’t see it coming?”

*

“Sans—“ 

You pounce on him, throwing your arms around his neck. You cry into his jacket, muttering i’m-sorry’s over and over and he doesn’t move much, just massages the back of your neck with his hand. 

“shh. i know. i know.”

“I shouldn’t’ve—I—I—“

“shh.” he pulls away to cradle your face, run his thumb over your lips. “you’re okay, baby girl. you’re okay.”

You shake your head a little. “—you asked me to be patient, and I wasn’t—“

“you didn’t know what you’d see in there,” he says in your favor. “i know you didn’t mean any harm. it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” you press, sniffling. “Because you don’t _look_ okay—“

“i just…” He hesitates. His hands drop to his sides and he shrugs, looking past you. Water drips from the kitchen sink and you count five drips before he speaks again. “i didn’t know how to tell you everything without it scaring you,” he finally says. “that’s why i…well, i just didn’t expect it to get to this point so soon.”

You take your glasses off, rubbing your eyes and sniffling. “Sans…if you don’t wanna tell me anything now, I understand—“ But he shakes his head, half-laughing.

“no i—if this is happening i uh. i have to at least tell you about him.”

The both of you go quiet. Six, seven, eight drops of water hit the sink. You want to start picking at your fingers so you start fiddling with your rings instead, sliding them on and off your fingers, looking up at him expectantly as you settle onto the couch. He doesn’t sit down. You breathe in deeply.

“Is it him?” you ask tentatively. “Is it…”

“it’s okay, sweetheart,” he smiles softly. “i know you know his name.”

“Gaster.” Saying it aloud to Sans feels dirty, somehow, not like before. Something like swearing in front of your grandmother but she’s too senile to understand that it’s rude. “It’s Gaster, isn’t it?”

He chuckles lightly. Finally he moves to sit down next to you, but he still won’t meet your eyes. “listen, angel…i don’t like you bein’ scared. but i’ve gotta be real with you here, if gaster is trying to communicate with you, i uh…can’t exactly guarantee that it’s a good thing.”

“I figured as much,” you say truthfully, smiling for a second. “So…who is he?”

“was,” he corrects you, staring at the blank TV screen. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve more drops of water. You inch closer to him on the couch.

“…Was—?“

“the royal scientist before alphys, asgore’s right hand man,” he picks up, leaning back. “he created the CORE, the center that converts geothermal energy into the magical electricity that powers the entire underground. to monsters, he was a genius, a hero. to me, though…to me he was everything.”

“Was he your…” Father? Brother? You wrack your brain trying to guess—for some people, their family is everything. For others, it’s a friend, or a lover—whoever he was, Gaster wasn’t just someone Sans worked with—

“hehehe. you’re not gonna believe me, but,” he cuts off your train of thought. “i don’t know. i don’t remember. it might be because of what happened, but—i don’t remember anymore. i just know that i loved the guy.”

You bite at your lip, thinking of what Alphys told you. She couldn’t seem to remember either. “You…worked with him, didn’t you.”

“yup. me, him, and alphys,” he explained. “until after he created the CORE. she started specializing in robotic engineering, and we started conducting experiments in time travel.”

“Time travel?”

“we were trying to find a way to get everyone back to the surface without killing anyone, without needing SOUL power to break the barrier. time travel was the solution he insisted upon.”

The wheels in your brain click in place as you forget to breathe for a moment. “He wanted to bring you all back to before the war started…”

“that’s right,” Sans confirms. He looks more somber the more he goes on talking. “his plan was to transport everyone back to a specific point in time without manipulating anyone’s current existence. no easy feat, but. he was so hopeful. at first, it started out great. we kinda—accidentally created a unique form of magic that allowed us to teleport. downside is it only worked with places we’d already been, but it was progress, nonetheless. he was so excited. even the tiniest little development gave him so much hope in finding the answer, but after a while, he…started to become unstable.”

“Un…Unstable?”

“he stopped sleeping, stopped eating—stopped talking to everybody. one day he even stopped talking to me. he was completely lost in his work. he built…well, he built that useless hunk of metal you saw in the basement.”

“What was it for?”

“it was supposed to be like…a portal,” he says like he’s struggling to remember. “a device that created a hole in time and space that a person could travel through unharmed, without disturbing the seams of reality.”

“Did it ever work?”

“i think one time he successfully transported a hot dog to another dimension,” Sans says fondly, “but it didn’t seem to work on living beings. when he tried with a mouse, he…well, it fried. he tried again with a spider, and that fried, too. but one day, a really brave little monster showed up, volunteering to try out the machine.”

“Did it work then?”

“nope, because i didn’t let them try,” Sans winks. “hehehe, gaster didn’t like when i argued against it. i convinced the kid to go home, and he was…not very happy with me. we fought. i didn’t even mind that he was spewing a whole lotta insults at me, because it was the first time he’d spoken to me in months at that point, but i said a lot of things to him that i uh…wish i hadn’t, considering.”

“Sans…what happened to him…?”

“that’s the worst part of the story, sweetheart. i don’t know.” He finally looks at you, hopelessly grinning in defeat. “nobody knows. i left the lab that night and came back the next day to emptiness. the machine was in shambles. nobody had seen or heard anything.”

He falls silent, pulls a bottle of ketchup from his pocket and takes a swig. You’re curious to know more, but you don’t want to push any more questions onto him, so you go back to playing with your jewelry. Twist your rings up and down your fingers. The kitchen sink stops leaking after thirteen, fourteen drops— 

“asgore made alphys the royal scientist after i turned it down. i told him i was too lazy to handle that kind of responsibility,” he chortles. “but honestly…i was a wreck. i couldn’t handle working there anymore. i left the capital, took up a sentry position here in snowdin, and never step foot back in that lab.”

“Sans…”

“i tried,” he croaks. “i tried to get him back. i took what was left of the machine and put it in the basement. i had alphys come over a few times and poke at it—i felt it in my bones, that it was that lousy goddamn machine that took him away. and if i could just figure out how it worked, put it back together, i could…”

He takes another gulp of ketchup. “but. neither of us could do it. i don’t remember when exactly i stopped trying, but it was long enough ago that papyrus doesn’t even remember his name.”

Your next breath hurts your chest. Your instinct is to try to comfort him, but you’re not sure your touch is welcome—you rest a hand on his kneecap anyway. He smiles at the gesture, but that’s all.

“hehehe, ’s fucked up, isn’t it? not too long after he disappeared, the king and queen lost both their kids. grief and despair struck the entire underground. our only known hope for salvation was taken from us, and all i could think about was losing gaster. i didn’t care about anything else. all i wanted was to get him back…and then i even gave up on that.”

“Sans…” you mumble. You’re not sure of what to say—you know nothing you can say is going to make it feel better. But then he sets down his ketchup and shifts around, perking up.

“but one day, though. i heard somebody. a voice i swore i’d never hear again.”

“W-What?”

“it was a little while before you showed up. ‘bout a few weeks ago. i went to that huge door in the forest, started practicing some knock-knock jokes—and his voice came in from the other side. ‘sans.’”

Your brows knit together as you watch him rise and start pacing around. “R-Really?”

“there was no mistaking it—it was him.”

“Sans…” You’re not sure this next thought is safe to say, but you already know he’s thinking it— “Do you think he’s alive?”

“that’s why this is fucking me up, kiddo,” his tone is a little harsh, suddenly. “i came to peace with him being gone years and years ago—and then you show up, and now suddenly i can’t even take a shortcut to grillby’s without feeling like he’s watching me.”

“S-Sans—?”

“i keep _feeling_ him, kid,” he shudders. “it’s like he’s always right outside my window, or right behind my post. i can’t see him, but i know he’s there. but nothing i do can validate this fucking feeling—“

“Is—is that what you’re doing when you stay out?” you ask bravely. “Looking for him—?”

“—i just can’t figure it out. why is this happening?” he asks, looking through you. “after all these years—after all those humans fell—what is it about _you_ being here? he gets me thinking he’s dead, so far gone papyrus doesn’t even know who he _is_ anymore—“

“Sans…”

“—and now after all this time, he—he—“

“Sans—please—“

“ _why_ is this happening?” he breaks, clutching the front of your shirt. He’s losing himself in your worried stare, clinging onto you for balance and you help him back onto the couch. 

“ _Sans_ ,” you squeak, afraid, but there’s still something else you need to tell him— “Sans, I still haven’t—there’s something I haven’t said yet, about earlier—“

“what?” 

“I don’t know if this is the reason,” you dally, uncertain, “but in the basement…in the basement, Gaster wasn’t the only voice I heard…”

The light in his sockets nearly goes out and his grip on you loosens— “what are you talking about, baby girl…”

“I only heard him after I heard someone else,” you explain, nervousness bringing the tears back to your eyes. “Someone I don’t know—“

“what,” he says hoarsely, worrying, “what did they say?”

“They called me ‘Chara.’”


	11. Chapter 11

The grip he’s got on your wrist is aching. The way you’re straddling him hurts your thighs. You somehow feel small in his grasp and his bones are warm. He’s laughing.

“you can kill me if you want,” he tells you. It doesn’t sound like he’s joking. “hehehe. i’m not afraid. but if you do…”

You want to thrust your knife forward, but your limbs feel like gelatin. It’s taking so much strength just to keep a hold on the knife— 

“do it as yourself.”

The crimson spark leaves your eyes like a flashlight going out. 

*

_“I know…you’re not actually Chara, are you?”_

*

Sans encircles his arms about your hips as the stink of molten lava and heavy machinery overbear the hearth of his Snowdin home. You’re about a hundred feet away from the laboratory in the time it takes to blink, the name Chara still hanging uncomfortably from the roof of your mouth. “Who is Chara?” 

You’ve asked two or three times now. Sans looks entranced in a way you’ve never seen before; afraid, confused. He wants to say something but the words aren’t right, aren’t enough. He takes your hand as you both go through the open doors to the lab. Alphys isn’t here. 

“Sans,” you shake, looking about the darkened hallway, “something doesn’t feel right—“

Fuzzy pink slippers slide over a note on the floor. You bump into his back when he halts. 

“Wait…”

“Is it Alphys?” You read it with him.

**If you’re reading this, I am so sorry.  
So sorry that I’ve spent all this time lying to you.  
I thought spending time with Undyne and Papyrus would make me feel better, but…  
I realized I never will until I tell the truth.  
If none of you ever want to see me again, I understand.  
I am leaving this door open so that you can see what really happened.  
I don’t really have the courage to guide you through myself.  
But please, if you make it through, please understand why I thought it would be better to hide everything.  
I thought this would make my life easier, keeping this all a secret.  
That’s the advice I took from him.  
But I see now that he was wrong.   
Sometimes, you need to ask for help.  
I learned it a little too late, but it’s better now than never at all.  
I am so sorry.  
To you and to him, too.  
I remember now. The man who spoke in hands.  
We have done terrible things, my friend.  
But I want to tell the truth, for both our sakes.**

Sans looks at the note for a long time. The little green button on the elevator is glinting at the both of you, beckoning. You’re afraid, but. 

But.

“Sans,” you breathe, tugging his sleeve. “We have to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please forgive the very short chapter but i just wanted to give y'all SOMETHING just to say happy new year and yes i'm alive and i am still working on this ;3; i actually played the game through again a few days ago and it just solidified how much i enjoy writing this and i'm very excited to share all these ideas with you guys. please look forward to more spoopy and sex! happy 2016 and thanks for sticking around!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this piece has become such a journey and i don't want to think about how sad i'm gonna be once it's finished but i can tell y'all we're almost done, maybe three or four chapters left until i think we'll be wrapping it up. i'm already destroyed hahaha i love my science monsters so much

“Sans…what is this place?”

It’s like he can’t hear you. His form almost fades in the shadows, slippers pat-patting against the cool, green tiles. A strange humidity tenses the atmosphere; you’re freezing from your knees down but your sweater is getting uncomfortably warm at the same time. The overhead lights are barely functioning—most of them are either dim or blown-out completely. He’s going ahead of you, entranced by his surroundings and you’re convinced he’s been here before. He knows this place.

This is the First Lab. 

A screen on the wall at your left blips on. You raise your eyebrows, forgetting about Sans in fleeting when a grainy video comes into picture. All you can see is a clean operating table and a wall nearly covered in blueprints and a timestamp in the bottom right corner, dated 3/13/1980. You feel yourself inhale sharply when a lizard-like monster comes into frame.

Slimmer, standing upright, with glasses far too big for her short snout, the scientist fidgets with her claws and makes a nervous self-introduction. You start picking at your nails, feeling your heart sink down to your stomach. Alphys, young and bright, with hope and intrigue brimming in her eyes, smoothes out her coat and beams at the camera. Her giggles and fidgets remind you of the “moe” anime characters she likes so much now. Your eyes ache with oncoming tears as you watch her laugh and shuffle papers and talk animatedly to whoever is off-screen, dread consuming you from the inside out. It’s in here. Whatever it was the broke this vibrant young scientist into the Alphys you know now, it is here. (You don’t want to find it.)

“Sans…?” you call for him, but your voice just echoes. You move to trek ahead, but you see someone flit in and out of frame on the first screen. Someone huge in stature, dressed completely in black, someone who seems like they could be a—skeleton?

You blink, freaking for a second that it could be Papyrus? You choke on air as the being takes center on-screen, resting a boney, spider-like hand on little Alphys’s shoulder.

 _“Hello, to whomever may be watching. The date is the thirteenth of March, year nineteen-eighty. My name is Wingdings Gaster, King Asgore’s Royal Scientist of the Underground. Upon completion of the CORE, my assistant Alphys and I are eager to begin our—”_ you jump, startled by the sudden static interruption, but the picture comes back almost instantly— _“—future endeavors.”_

It cuts to black. It fades to that dark grey that a screen will blip to when a video is done but the TV itself is still on. And then it goes out completely, like the monitor was completely cut off. Your hands are on your mouth and your guts are winding into a knot so tight you’re afraid to move. You can hear him in your head, Wingdings Gaster. _Wingdings Gaster_. You start to run.

Dust puffs up off the tiles as your feet clack against the floor. This hallway is probably the longest you’ve ever been down your whole life, but you seem to reach the next room within seconds. It’s steamy in here, smells almost like a nursery. You finally notice the beds—the first one you touch is sticky. There’s another screen on the wall in this room and you press the button on the side of the frame. 

5/7/1980. Alphys is wearing goggles and rubber gloves, but only her top half is in frame. She’s taking samples of something, but you can’t see whatever it is. Red fluid fills up her syringe and you suddenly don’t want to watch anymore. The video cuts to another scenario, Alphys and Gaster looking down into the camera with unreadable expressions. She’s wearing her goggles again, yet he is not. He’s got blue pinpricks deep in his eye sockets and you feel unusually charmed by them. He’s smiling and he looks so heart-wrenchingly like Papyrus. The timestamp is 5/10/1980. The screen glitches again.

The next shot is Gaster holding something blue and glowing; an egg? Or an orb of some sort. You look closer and notice he’s not exactly touching it directly—it’s more floating in his palm and it’s big. The light radiating off it is so strong you can’t really tell what shape the actual object is, if it even is an object at all….a SOUL? The timestamp is 1/1/1981.

The screen blips static again and you have to find the nearest bed to steady you. Sans, widely smiling in his same pink house slippers, peers at you through the screen, waving his phalanges. Gaster pats him on the shoulder. _“It is truly a blessing to welcome such an innovative mind to our research board. Alphys and I are so happy you have joined us, Sans.”_ 10/13/1983.

The monitor turns off, like it’s suddenly run out of power, but flickers back on. Sans is absent, but Gaster and Alphys are on screen again, although with their backs turned facing the wall, talking over a counter. They don’t seem to be aware the camera is on. 4/12/1981. 

_“—do so would destroy the SOUL’s host completely.”_

_“We must do what the King has asked of us.”_

_“Doctor, it’s entirely impractical, there’s no possible way to make a monster’s SOUL last—“_

_“There are things that we haven’t tried, Alphys. We must persevere. Nothing can be gained without risks.”_

The audio is so low—you can’t hear them very well, but it’s very clear that they’re arguing. It’s uncomfortable to watch.

 _“—impossible to discern without a human SOUL to experiment on. Whatever it is that differentiates a human SOUL from a monster SOUL…”_

_“Are you suggesting we ask Asgore to cross the barrier and kill the first human being he sees to bring back for us to toy with?”_

_“What is one life weighed against the lives of hundreds, Alphys?”_

A gasp leaves your windpipe at the same time as one does from young Alphys. Gaster turns about, heaving a sigh with his hand over his skull. He looks so tired, the ridges under his sockets are so dark, dark like Sans’s. He waves a hand before resting it on her head affectionately. They stay that way for a minute or two, saying nothing and staying so still you think the video froze. But then Alphys opens her mouth to speak and the screen cuts out. Nothing else happens. One of the beds creaks loudly and you don’t want to be in that room anymore.

Another monitor makes noises like it’s booting up down the hallway and you rush to investigate. Alphys is gone, it’s just Gaster and Sans. The date is 11/4/1983 and they are taking notes furiously. Sans rises from his office chair and Gaster tells him, _“Alright, again—Attempt number five. Go ahead, Sans.”_ Sans inhales sharply and you blink twice and he’s gone from the picture. You furrow your brow, chest swelling like a balloon. Teleportation. You’re watching Sans discover his teleportation. 

Gaster continues writing notes, on what you haven't a clue, you're so enthralled that you get to experience this moment that you hardly notice when he reappears. Several minutes must have passed. Sans is out of breathe when he flits back on screen, but not from tiredness. He grips Gaster’s arms, beaming. 

_“Where—?”_

_“—grillby’s, i went to grillby's—"_

_“—is it?—"_

_“—same date, same time, i’m in the same time—"_

The doctor looks crestfallen. _“—I see…so it’s not…?”_

_“—no, but it’s—i think we’ve done something else—"_

_“—Curious…! How curious indeed—such happy accidents."_ He turns to jot down more notes, talking quietly more to himself now than to his partner. _"An…unexpected success is still success.”_

 _“doc?”_ Sans’s voice trembles. _“doc i’m—i'm sorry…”_

Gaster bends forward to level with his face, holding out a hand. Sans takes it. _“My boy…you have made your first discovery…! Yet you are unhappy?”_

 _“it’s not what you wanted.”_ Your heart tugs as you purse your lips. Sans sounds so young and it hurts to hear. 

Gaster kneels before him, looking at Sans for what feels like a very long time before he gently, slowly wraps his eerily long limbs about his frame, holding him tightly. Just as Sans leans into him, static fizzles and the monitor cuts off. When you’re sure it’s not going to come back on, you move along, wandering into a room that looks to be a tiny library.

There’s bookcases, lined with odd titles and several anime DVDs and VHS tapes that you don’t recognize. The clock on the wall seems to be stuck at midnight—well that’s not ominous at all. You look at the TV stand, wondering if it still works—it’s plugged in. There’s three tapes scattered on the stand and you wonder if Sans had just been in here, watching them. A screen on the wall displays what looks like a journal entry— 

**ENTRY NUMBER 4: I ended up snooping around the castle…and found these weird tapes. I don’t feel like ASGORE’s watched them…I don’t think he should.**

You crouch down to inspect the tapes. Some of them must be missing as there’s only a 3 and a 5, but there’s another one that’s unlabeled. You feel like you should save that one for last, so you pop number 3 into the VCR. 

The picture is completely black. There’s someone talking, someone young but you have no idea who it could be.

_“—left the cap on, on PURPOSE! Now you’re smiling for nooo reason! Hee hee! What?…Oh, I remember. When we tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right? The recipe asked for cups of butter. But we accidentally put real buttercups instead…Yeah! Those flowers got him really sick…I felt so bad. We made Mom really upset. I should have laughed it off like you did…Anyway, where are you going with this?…Turn off the camera? Okay—"_

The hairs on your arms raise as goosebumps chill your skin. Butterscotch pie…Toriel. 

Toriel and Asgore were…You pick up the next tape. You don’t know how you never pieced it together. After the way everyone talked about each of them, after all the stories you’ve heard. You don’t want to, but you insert Tape 5. You feel like crying. It’s her.

_“Chara…can you hear me?”_

_“Chara! You have to stay determined! You can’t give up…you are the future of humans and monsters…”_

_“Chara…please wake up…I don’t like this plan anymore…no, I…I said I’d never doubt you. Six, right? We just have to get six…and then we’ll do it together, right?”_

The feed cuts out and you cry. You clutch the blank tape and cough and hack out little sobs. You feel warmth bubble in your chest, feeling like you just peeked into a memory that you’d forgotten, although it doesn’t make sense. You had a family when you were young. You remember having your own mother and father and little brother, yet—you shake your head. Sympathy pain, isn’t that it? Empathetic. You were always empathetic. You’re just projecting your own sadness onto a similar situation. 

You wipe your tears, thinking of Sans, whether he’s watched these tapes or not—of Alphys, of what she must have thought when she watched them. Alphys…poor Alphys. Alone with all of this. All this and God knows what else more. You feel like the next tape is going to make you really sick but you’ve got to keep going. It’s all static when it starts, then Gaster appears.

The timestamp is ??/??/1985.

_“—did something I should not have…they’ll have my head when they wake, but for now, my true experiment can begin—"_

Behind him, asleep encased in a glass pod, tubes hooked up everywhere—lay the adopted human princess, Asgore’s only hope—

_“—I will isolate the power without harming the body…I will uncover the secret to the longevity of the human SOULs…and long after I am gone, I hope Alphys can only do it…six more times…”_

—Chara.

Static. Gaster reappears. ??/??/1985.

 _“—most unexpected results. Upon studying the nature of the princess’s SOUL, I found—"_ the video starts jumping around, glitching. Maybe Alphys has watched it so many times that the tape is wearing out— _“most interesting—it’s as if the SOUL is not a whole in of itself, but a compound of different pieces…there are feelings, traits, desires—all that which could be nigh impossible for a human of her age to have experienced, and yet, these components exist within her…how very curious…could my theory be true…? Is this why the pursuit of time travel has been so feared? The possibilities—"_

The air feels cold against the wet trail of tears left on your cheeks—you don’t want to believe what you’re seeing. It can’t be true. You don’t want it to be. For Sans’s sake, you don’t want it to be true.

The white noise fizzles in and out and Gaster is shown pacing around the glass pod, hands running over his skull in distress. He doesn’t look at the camera. ??/??/1985.

Black. Then the picture is back. Chara’s body is gone from the pod. Gaster is seated at the counter, a vile next to him glowing red. The machine whirrs and beeps. You get the feeling that someone had just left his room…Gaster is quietly weeping. You bite on your lip, seeing that the timestamp looks to be functioning again. It’s the night before he disappeared, 10/13/1985. 

The screen goes out, and you think it’s over, wiping your tears and sniffling on your sleeve, but the screen flashes white. A horrid, ear-piercing shriek fills the room and bounces off the walls down the hallway and you’re screeching too, covering your ears as Gaster’s form glitches across the screen—

**“—FELT SUCH A STRANGE SENSATION…!  
** THIS WARMTH IS SO ADDICTING  
IMAGINE WHAT IT COULD MEAN IF I SURVIVE  
BUT IF I DO NOT—  
ALPHYS  
DETERMINATION IS THE ANSWER  
YOU NEED A VESSEL  
NEITHER HUMAN NOR MONSTER  
I DO NOT THINK  
OUR FORMS CAN HOLD SUCH—" 

It’s so hard to see through the tears. You grip the television set like it’s going to make a difference, screaming out sobs. “Gaster—!”

**“DARKER, DARKER, YET DARKER  
** THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING  
SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER  
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE  
THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS  
VERY  
VERY  
INTERESTING…  
WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?” 

_Zzzzt._


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I love you, Sans--"
> 
> He chortles, red spilling from between his teeth and you don't want to think it's blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your wonderful comments and kudos and support! i am so sorry if you ever leave a comment and it goes without a reply, i am just speechless at your kindness 9 times outta 10, i really can't tell you how much i appreciate it without just a thank you so--gosh thank you! i keep putting off updating because truthfully i don't want this fic to end anytime soon but a conclusion is drawing nearer with every new chapter. i'm having a wonderful time writing this and exploring characters and man. this fic means a whole lot to me and the fact that so many of you are enjoying it is just. fucking wildly awesome. thank you guys so much again <3

“kid—?!”

A form appears in the doorway and you nearly knock over the TV. “Sans—!”

In a gulp for air, you lunge at him, throwing your arms about him and he latches onto you, starting to jerk you forward—

“listen, sweetheart, i’ve gotta get you outta here—"

“—the videos, Sans,” you cut him off, blubbering, “—those videos—I saw him—"

“—vide-what?” he repeats, stopping in his tracks as you grab his front.

“—the diaries, Sans!—of all his experiments—you didn’t—?”

“s-slow down, kiddo, what’re you—?”

“Sans,” you shake, “Gaster, he set up all those videos, all those plasma screens in the hallways—?"

“wait, h-hold on,” he pleads with you, “listen, there are— _things_ down here, things that i’m pretty sure don’t like company—"

The ceiling starts quaking as the DVDs and tapes tremble on the shelves. Sans leads you out down a darkened corridor, an unfamiliar whining and rumbling creeping up the walls behind you. The two of you meet a dead end, a switch waiting to be pressed—the elevator is seconds away from having power again.

“lemme hit this switch and we’ll go, okay sweetheart?” he sweats, letting go of your hand just in time for the whining to fill the air, the fog thickening with a heavy, metallic scent. Someone—something behind you is making a noise that sounds like a cat mewling and several people screaming at the same time—

“Sans?!”

You whip around to meet a gaggle of the most terrifyingly boggling creatures you weren’t sure you could exist. All white, all dripping with some sort of…foaming ooze? Eyes wide and mouths gaping open to let out these other-worldly howls you strained to hear. No two creatures looked much alike—some had too many rows of teeth, some were impossibly large, some looked impossibly similar to other monsters you know you’d met here and there in the Undergound—a sense of familiarity started to overpower your apprehension and discomfort. Something in some of their eyes felt so—sad—

“O-oomf—“ Sans’s arms find your waist just as the lights flash—the fog is suddenly dissipating as a croaky, nasally voice pierces the density in the air.

“h-hey!!”

“A-Alphys—?” you murmur, holding tightly to Sans as the creatures slowly turn away from you.

“i brought you guys some food, so back off, okay? come on, come get your dinner!”

“A-Alphys,” you say again, loosening yourself from the skeleton to call to her. The reptilian woman turns to meet your face with heavily lidded eyes and clouded glasses.

“s-sorry,” she starts innocently. “they get kind of sassy when they haven’t eaten.”

“Alphys, what are—“

Sans answers for her, stony faced and unnaturally cold. “those are the amalgamates.” Alphys’s gaze drops to the floor. 

“Amalgam—what?” you hiccup, looking to and fro the both of them. 

“so asgore really did rope you into it,” Sans spits out, waspish and harsh. “the DETERMINATION project.”

“it was my choice,” she says defensively, clenching her claws. “he didn’t make me do anything. i insisted—it was my mistake. asgore had lost all hope, and clung to the only idea he knew—the only idea gaster left behind.”

“gaster—" Sans barks at her, but Alphys shakes her head, countenance shifting a complete one-eighty as her eyes lift sympathetically. 

“i’m not saying this was his fault,” she says tenderly. “gaster would never have wanted this. he had no idea the project could end up this way—it was my fault.”

“the bodies of monsters,” Sans starts—you let go of him and he inches forward to her— “they couldn’t handle the injections—they all morphed together into…”

“yes,” she admits, sorrowful. “they didn’t have enough physical matter to sustain—they melded together, into—those. i couldn’t—i couldn’t fix them. i couldn’t save them.” 

Sans considers her quietly for a beat, slowly taking her claws between his phalanges, comforting. He softens. “why didn’t you ever tell me…why didn’t you let me help you?”

“i d-d-didn’t want you to deal with it,” she smiles weakly, tearfully. “the phone calls from all the families—asgore’s lament…i knew you didn’t want to come back here. you were still grieving. i didn’t want to remind you of him.”

“it’s been thirty years, alphys—"

“thirty years,” she splices, “and you still haven’t talked to papyrus about him, have you?”

You hear Sans’s breath hitch and sputter and then Alphys is upon him in seconds, nuzzling his skull with her snout as they both start to break down in front of you. Your heart clenches as you listen to them.

“he tried to absorb chara’s DETERMINATION,” she confessed, going hoarse. “he drugged the king and queen one night—s-stole chara from their home. he isolated pieces of her SOUL and—and that’s when we lost him. he thought that maybe—m-maybe monsters could host human SOULs in pieces, rather than in their entirety, but…”

“alphys,” he strains, skull resting on her shoulder, “did you…did you see him…?” She whines out a pathetic “mmm-hmm” and the skeleton grips her tighter. 

“it was awful, sans,” she cries, “he was there and then he wasn’t, he was gone—in a mass of electricity and magic and fire…he was gone. just like that.” 

Tears trickle from the corners of your eyes as the gravel in Sans’s voice tugs at you. “so it wasn’t because of the machine…”

“no,” she whimpers, and he whimpers too. “it wasn’t. i’m sorry, sans.” 

“you were scared,” he says, sounding like the older brother he’s so good at being. “it’s okay, alphys…” 

“i kept it all a secret,” Alphys sniffles, catching the fur lining of his coat, “because i promised him i would. i didn’t want anyone to think he was a bad person—i knew nobody would understand if i told them. asgore would never understand—so i carried that weight. i deserved to suffer for all the horrible things we did. and then i didn’t come clean about the amalgamates because—i w-was so sure i could find an answer. i wanted it to work so badly. it would have made gaster so happy...but then that flower left the garden and it f-felt like none of my dreams would ever come true again. it was like i failed him. i’m so sorry sans, i—i thought i c-c-could save you from that pain but i wound up only making it w-worse…”

“alphys, no,” he croaks, pulling away to look her in the face, “no, i’m sorry—i’m sorry i left. i wasn’t there for you. i’m sorry.”

“you had papyrus,” she offers, “you had to take care of your family—i n-never blamed you. not once. i understand you better than you know, sometimes.” 

They hear you cough and sniffle and rise up to stand again, wiping their faces. 

“s-s-sorry we had to subject you to all of this,” Alphys mutters, but you hold onto her hand. “No, no—I want to be here for you, Alphys. We’re friends, right?”

“f-friends,” she repeats, glowing. “r-right!” Her muscles tense as you pull her into a squeezing hug, but you swallow tears when you feel her relax in your arms. Sans touches at your back and the three of you stay like that for a few moments, the munching and happy wailing of the Amalgamates eating down the hall all you can hear over your collective staccato of breaths. Alphys tells you she’s going to call the families and explain, finally, what really happened, and take everyone home, and you ask her one more thing before you decide what to do next.

“Alphys,” you exhale steadily. “Do you think—do you think he’s still alive?”

“alive?” She raises her brows. “i feel like it should be impossible that it be so, but—but somehow…i want to believe that somehow, he is.”

You smile fondly at her and then at Sans. “Thanks, Alphys.”

“come on, sweetheart.” He nudges your side and you take his hand. “let’s head home.” 

*

[DON’T LET THE DARKNESS CONSUME YOU.]

“Sans?”

Bones tousle and jitter beneath you as cyan magic vanishes from his eye. “sweetheart? is it you?”

“Sans—?!”

“hey, hey,” he half-laughs, holding your waist as he sits up. The knife sinks into his spine and your fingers are tingling and shuddering—you can smell the dust under your nails, on your sleeves—

“it’s _you_ , it’s you—" He sounds like he’s thanking Someone Upstairs, whispering your name over and over and caressing your cheeks. “there’s my good girl, there you are—"

“Sans,” you snivel, staring horrorstruck at the bloodstains on your sweater. “Sans—what have I done—what did I do—?”

“it wasn’t you,” he argues, clinging to your frame as you tremble, “it wasn’t you, sweetheart—it’s not your fault, none of this is your fault—“

“Sans, what happened to me?” you start blubbering, “Who—who am I? _What_ am I?”

“listen to me, baby girl,” he gulps, “listen to me—i need you to RESET the timeline." 

“Go back?” you croak, burying your hands in his hoodie. “You mean—?"

“this is the only time i’m ever going to tell you to do this,” he tells you, desperately, “but that’s because i can see it now. i see exactly what happened.”

“What are you talking about? Sans?” you whine, your tears dripping onto his cheekbones. He wipes them. 

“it’ll make sense when you start over,” he promises, “but please. i need you to go back. i need you to look for gaster.”

“Gaster—" you repeat, the name sitting on your tongue with a bittersweet taste. “Gaster—?”

“take this key, please, sweetheart—" He shoves a key into your bloodied hand, pressing a kiss to your dusty knuckles before wiping the sweat from your brow. “take it and remember gaster, please—"

“Sans—" You feel like you woke up from a horrible nightmare, a nightmare you had to watch with eyes stuck open from beginning to end. You feel so much death and suffering--sins crawling at your back as skeleton hands caress you. "Sans--I’m so sorry—"

He shakes his head, hushing you with bony fingers pressed to your mouth. “i know. i know sweetheart. but now you gotta prove it. go back. don’t give up.”

“Sans—" you stutter, the tears don’t stop running— “I love you, Sans—"

He chortles, red spilling from between his teeth and you don’t want to think it’s blood. It’s not blood, it can’t be— “if you mean that, sweetheart, you know what you have to do.”

Sans crawls away from you, barely making it to the entrance of the throne room before you see it: the dust spiraling in a small gust of air. You have no time to cry. The darkness within you is stirring and you hear a faint voice calling out.

[COME BACK.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somebody please give these sad scientists a hug ;_____; 
> 
> i'm so SALTY that the alphys and sans potential was never explored in game!!! you can't tell me these bitches didn't work together for YEARS!! SCIENCE!!
> 
> anyway if you're confused about reader and chara's relationship at all, fear not as it will make complete sense later. or if you're super savvy you've probably got it figured out by now!
> 
> i love, love love love an ambiguous dr. gaster--a doctor with questionable morals but good intentions. gosh the possibilities with this wonderful character are so sublime. i love what i've made of him here and am excited to share more of him with you. 
> 
> if you're curious, i've composed a timeline of events to coincide with the canon of this piece:
> 
> human/monster war; alphys is born; sans is born - 1970  
> gaster is appointed royal scientist - 1971  
> gaster creates the core - 1975  
> alphys starts an apprenticeship under gaster - 1979 (she was a young genius ok)  
> gaster and alphys start researching humans - 1980  
> gaster and alphys experiment in monster birth and creation, begin incubating a monster soul with magic that will later "hatch" into papyrus - 1981  
> alphys diverts her studies to robotic engineering, creates mettaton - 1985  
> gaster's death; chara's death - 1985  
> the aqua soul's arrival/death - 1986  
> the royal blue soul's arrival/death - 1987  
> the purple soul's arrival/death; undyne is born - 1991  
> the orange soul's arrival/death; papyrus is born - 1995  
> the yellow soul's arrival/death - 1999  
> the green soul's arrival/death; alphys begins DETERMINATION research on the SOULs, creates the amalgamates - 2010  
> reader's arrival - 2015
> 
> the history of the underground is so ambiguous in game, there's almost nothing to go off of that really tells you how long they've been down there, but i knew it had to be a very, very long time--long enough that most of the monsters you encounter have never seen a human before. now how the fuck could that be when 6 of them fell before you? how is it that undyne and the skelebros had never seen toriel/didn't know she was the queen? the underground had to have been situated for at least 30 years, if not more, imo, so i rolled with that idea. i certainly didn't think the war was ancient history but it didn't happen in a short amount of time, either. 
> 
> it makes sense that more organic/mammalian monsters like undyne and alphys would be born similar to animals on earth, i.e. mating and pregnancy, laying eggs, whatever whatever but more complex monsters like the skeletons are probably born purely through magic, like what if sans and papyrus and even gaster himself were just born of magic and love? a bond strong between two of them could produce a magical substance strong enough to sustain and create a whole life? i like to think gaster and sans had a bond so powerful they created papyrus together u/////u papyrus is the "egg" that gaster was holding in chapter 12 ;3; sans "hatched" him when he was ready to start moving on and started taking care of him on his own ;;


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaAAAAAHHHHH

Twilight is shining through the barrier. The king turns around slowly.

It seems your journey has finally come to an end.

"Human," he speaks softly. A single tear rolls down his gentle face. "It was nice to meet you. Goodbye."

*

He doesn’t teleport you back to the house.

The wet grass and dewdrops feel spongey under your feet when you land with a soft _pshhhhht_ , holding onto his jacket with your face hidden in the fur. The soft glow of the echo flowers glimmer over your face; the quiet hums of the running waters reminding you _hey, you’re alright_. You’re safe now. Tugging on his sleeve, you follow Sans down a crystal-lit path to a clearing just shy of Napstablook’s house and you’ve never been happier to smell the crisp air in Waterfall. 

“I thought you’d wanna go straight home.”

Sans shrugs, settling his back against a boulder. He holds out his hands and you let him pull you onto his lap. “i don’t wanna risk papyrus overhearing.”

You toy with the strings of his hoodie absently. “So…you wanna talk about him?”

His gaze sort of shifts. He picks at blades of bluish grass and flicks them aside. You wrap an arm around his neck and nudge his forehead. “You don’t have to.”

“the videos…” His voice drops as quickly as he starts. “you know, even all those years ago, i had a feeling he was keeping something from me.”

“It must have been hard for him,” you feel like you need to say. “I’m not saying what he did was okay but—“

“no, i know,” Sans says. “i know what you mean. gaster wasn’t the best at talking about his feelings…i guess we’re a lot alike in that way, hehe…”

You try to search his face, but the whites of his sockets are unreadable. “i just…i wish he didn’t have to feel like he needed to shield me from everything.”

“Come on, Sans,” you challenge him, cocking an eyebrow. “You shield Papyrus from a _lot_ of shit—"

“that’s different—"

“Is it?” you press on, but gentler this time. “Is it really?”

He knows you've got a point. You're not _always_ right, but you’re almost never wrong--at least when it comes to his brother. He’s mulling over your words as the whispers of the flowers breeze past you in a chill. It smells like rain and you snuggle closer to him, pecking the top of his skull affectionately.

“I know I didn’t know him,” you start apologetically, “so it feels unfair of me to say it, but. I just _know_ that he had to have believed that he was doing the right thing. He had to have thought it was better if you didn’t know.” 

“i felt him, back there, ya know,” he mutters woefully, after a beat. “with alphys. i felt like i could see him in her eyes. hehe, she doesn’t realize how much like him she really is…”

“I think _you_ don’t realize how much like him you are yourself,” you tell him, a smile twitching. “He loved you.”

Sans studies you with a burning curiosity, his left eye glinting between a yellow and a cyan. “kid…”

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” you murmur, feeling silly, “but I can feel it. Every time you mention him, I get this _feeling_ that I can’t explain—I just know he loved you. He loved you more than anything. Nothing turned out like he planned, but—I know he’s probably really happy he was able to protect you. Seeing how happy you are now--I don’t think he would have done anything differently.” 

Bones of his fingers are caught in your hair as his teeth brush your skin, warm little breaths on your shoulder. You’d have thought that skeletons would be so still. But he’s not. He fidgets, fusses. His ribcage rises and falls, his knees jitter. You watch his feet wriggle in his slippers. His breathing stutters and it’s obvious to you now—this is his way of crying. You hold him, curling your legs up, your hands warm in his pockets. 

He sounds so far away despite his mouth being next to your ear. “i miss him.” 

“I’m so sorry,” you mumble. “I’m sorry—this mess is all because of me—"

“heya, don’t blame yourself, sweetheart,” he tells you, cupping your chin. “you didn’t ask for this—none of it. it’s not your fault.” 

“I just wish I could make it better.”

His grin falters. Neither of you wants to say it aloud, but you both know that you can’t. There’s nothing anyone can do. Not even you, the human, the interchanging variable in the Underground. There’s something so unique, so singular about you in particular, the seventh SOUL inhabiting this strange world—but not even you can bring back the dead. This place probably wouldn’t be here much longer if you could. So you hold onto Sans, kissing the bumps of his skeleton hands, thinking about shit like broken promises and freedom and you wonder how many times, on how many previous runs you told him you’d make sure they all get to the surface. How many times he tried to convince you to stay. How many times you told him that you wanted Papyrus to see the sun. _Don’t you want Pap to see the sun, Sans? Don’t you want him to drive his car on the highway? Experience **real** life?_

What even _counts_ as real life, anyway, anymore?

You slide your hand up his ribcage and ask yourself if you’re being selfish. You could be going to the capital. You could go see the King. All he needs is your SOUL, and then he can become a God. He can break the barrier. But here you are, week number two of stalling in Snowdin, fucking a skeleton behind closed doors, befriending all these monsters too young too realize that you’re not even one of them, you’re a human. A human freeloading and frolicking around a magical play place while Asgore rots in his castle, completely unaware that the last piece of the puzzle is lollygagging around his realm. He could have freed an entire race of innocent people by now, if you weren’t such a scared little shit. 

_“What is one life weighed against hundreds?”_

You can’t stop hearing Gaster in your mind. You can’t stop seeing his face. What would he think of you? What would he think about Sans fucking around with you like he hasn’t a care in the world? How long would he let this go on if he were really here?

... _Is_ he really here?

[—HERE—]

You gasp, jumping off Sans and he yelps in alarm. “what’s up, kid?”

“Did you hear that—"

[—HERE—ME—]

“Sans!”

He rises, taking your hands. “what’s wrong, doll? hear what?”

You can hear yourself speak, but words must not be coming out because Sans is just staring back at you, dumbfounded. There’s a hum in your ears like fifty wasps buzzing and you grimace—your knees buckle and you grasp at weeds to catch your stumble—

[YOU CAN—HEAR ME—COME—ME—]

There’s a noise coming from under the dirt that sounds remarkably like the AOL dialup from 1998. You start plucking the grass and clawing at the dirt. It gets louder and louder and then stops. What? That didn’t just happen. You start laughing at yourself. That was stupid. Stupid?

[DON’T—NOT—STUPID—]

“—worrying me, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Sans is shaking your shoulders, but you don't feel it. You’re on the ground, you’re picking at the grovel in Hotland and Sans isn’t here. You hear a phone ringing.

“—wrong number, it’s the wrong number song! We’re very very sorry that we got it wrong!”

Your legs swing over his arms as Sans picks you up bridal style but you feel nothing. All you can see is a figure in black ahead of you, the crashes and waves of the sparkling rivers flooding your eardrums as you’re subdued by the catchiness of the Wrong Number jingle. The figure in black is imposing upon you, so near but yet yards away—smells like burning wires. You can see the Fabric of Time weaving and unweaving itself. The thread is purple and shiny. 

[—FIND—ME—]

You look at your hand. All you see is an outline. There’s static. Your arm feels like pins and needles and it hurts. Like it fell asleep. _Zssst_. Reality is tearing apart. _You_ are tearing apart. You can see your own face staring back at you in a mirror that isn’t there. Your eyes are missing. Blood is on your hands and it isn't yours. It's not your blood.

“—find you, I’ll find you—"

Sans is telling Papyrus to get Alphys. The lights in the living room flick on and off. The mirror crashes but not before you look into a face quite younger and more frightening than your own.

_“Since when were you the one in control?”_

*

“so you made it.”

Gold and emerald lights fall across the plane of the marble floor and halo his head in an ethereal shimmer. He almost doesn’t seem real and your throat swells up. You already miss him so much. You nod.

“This is usually the part where I tell you my sins.”

“and sometimes it’s the part where you sharpen your knife.” His shoulders bounce with a hearty chuckle. You let yourself grin.

*

"Chara...I'm so sorry. I was always a cry baby, wasn't I?"

You press your lips together and feel your lungs constrict. The small goat boy snickers.

"S-Sorry. I know. You're not actually Chara, are you?"

*

Prisms of color crescent behind your eyelids as you slowly start to feel yourself wake. Your head feels like a fishbowl, heavy like it’s full of water and you can barely crane your neck up to see where you are. Walls bare and trashnado picked up, it takes you a few minutes to register that you’re in Sans’s room. You prop yourself up on your elbows and realize you can hardly remember what you were doing before. Fuck—you didn’t RESET, did you? Maybe you just SAVED and started back before—? Huh. There’s singing from downstairs and it doesn’t sound like Papyrus.

You stand up too fast and instantly feel nauseated. You don’t remember having a nightgown on the last time you were awake—you feel a little blush creep up. Sans probably dressed you down. You make your way to the living room and it’s oddly quiet, save for melodic robot noises. Mettaton—in his more aesthetically pleasing body—is bustling about the kitchen in a skimpy pink apron with ruffles, licking at a wooden spoon. Everything smells like cookie dough. 

“ _Darling_ , you’re awake!! It’s a miracle!” he celebrates, extending his arms to scoop you up into a tight hug. You haven’t seen him in this form since the battle that you’re pretty sure you SAVED over—

“H-Hi, Mettaton,” you stammer sheepishly. “Um. Why are you—here? Where is everybody?”

“Out looking for a way to wake you up,” he answers symphonically, eyeing you up and down, “but I suppose they can all come back now!”

“Huh—what? Wake me up? How long was I asleep?” 

He giggles tunefully. “Oh _darling_ , you were out cold for almost three _days_! Everyone was _beside themselves_ with worry—but you look completely normal now! How do you feel?”

“Normal—now?” you chirp, baffled. “Mettaton what the fuck happened to me—?”

“ _Language_ , darling, such filth doesn’t suit you,” he scolds you, pouting his puckered lips. You sigh and he continues, “Anyway, normal as in your figure doesn’t seem to be glitching out of reality like a dysfunctional broadcast!”

The air thickens. Your chest tightens. “…Glitching? I was—glitching?” 

“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he explains, resting a hand on his hip with the wooden spoon pressed pensively against his cheek. “I accompanied Alphys to take a look at you when you fell, and your entire body just kept—flashing in and out of sight, like a hologram. What a scary sight! Poor dear Alphys almost fainted!”

You don’t know what to say. You faintly remember feeling strange in Waterfall, but it felt like a bad dream you’d had only a few minutes ago. You know you heard a voice—but you can’t remember seeing or feeling anything at all. The voice…

“Mettaton,” you start, “did anyone say anything about Gaster?”

“Gaster?” he repeats for clarity, “what in the Underground is a _Gaster_?”

“Never mind,” you shake your head, fumbling into the living room to find some clothes, “Mettaton, do you know where Sans is right now? Or Alphys?” 

“Alphys is back at the lab running tests, and I’m not sure about Sans,” he answers, but then adds with firmness, “but they both told me I need to stay here with you, you shouldn’t be going anywhere—"

You slip into some leggings and a tunic and wrap your circle scarf about your neck. You feel a bubbling in your gut that isn’t hunger, a buzzing in your head like a TV getting a bad signal— “I’m sorry—Mettaton I’ve gotta go, there’s something I gotta do—"

“Wait! Human, what if you’re sick!” he protests. “We don’t know what’s happening to you, going outside could be dangerous!” 

You feel a sensation somewhat like your organs being carved out of your chest with a beam of light—you don’t know how you can make this comparison. If you look down you can see blood seeping through holes in your shirt—but they’re not real. Nothing is real. You feel your lips stretching wide across your face. You’re not smiling at Mettaton. 

Your neck snaps to the side as you feel yourself waving at the robot. “I’ll be back.”

It sounds more like a threat than a promise. You feel yourself vanish.

*

_"Legend has it an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAHHHH


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flowey is a magnificent bastard. i want to pot him up and put him on my kitchen windowsill and bitch about my work day with him.

_It’s me, Chara._

*

“ _FLOWEY!!_ ”

The wind whistles through the thick of the trees, snow and leaves showering you as they tumble down the path to the RUINS. The heavy tree bark door is cemented shut by magic and you thrust your fists at it, useless.

“I KNOW YOU’RE AROUND HERE!” you screech into the woods. It feels like you’re being severed in half at the waist and you can hardly see your feet anymore. You notice you aren’t leaving tracks in the snow.

You fall to your knees, taking fistfuls of mud and dirt in your hands and throwing them aimlessly at the door. Your skin is crawling, literally crawling off your bones. Red flesh and muscle twitches in your arms and you can’t look down at your own body anymore—it’s not even like you’re looking at yourself. You stay fixated on the door but you know—Toriel is not coming out to save you. 

Nobody is.

*** But nobody came.**

You whip your hair around to look behind you. You can feel a voice— 

“Howdy! Boy, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon! Getting tired?”

“You little piece of shit—" You lunge at the little golden flower, but he disappears under the dirt, popping up again behind a tree trunk a few feet away.

“Gol- _ly_ , you’re _feisty_ this run! And you haven’t even killed anyone this time!”

“What’s happening to me, you little bastard!” you challenge him—your voice sounds too much like a little child’s. That wasn’t your voice. 

“ _In_ -teresting,” the flower muses, wicked little grin curling. “Verrrrry interesting.”

“I know you did something,” you spit, taking out the real knife you didn’t even know had been in your pocket. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”

“ _My_ fault?” he repeats, incredulous. “Boy oh boy!”

“What’d you fucking do to me?” you bark at him, crouching to get on his level. His tiny face remains still and smiling wide, black holes for eyes unblinking. 

“Hmmm? You mean this cool glitchy thing your body is doing?” he chirps, sickening-sweet. “Sorry to disappoint’cha pal, but it’s not my doing at all!”

“You’re lying,” you spit at him, ready to uproot him from the ground. “I know you know—you can’t lie to me, Flowey—"

“Touchy, touchy, yeesh!” he clicks, deliciously amused. “You _wound_ me, old pal, always trying to blame me for everything that goes wrong down here—but I’m not lying—" his face contorts into a sinister cast, mouth splitting into a jagged grin. “I _wish_ I had the power to play with you like this, but someone _much_ stronger than me is having all the fun!”

“Who is it, Flowey,” you demand, heaving and huffing. He inches away from you, burrowing paths in the dirt.

“Silly nilly,” he taunts you, staring, “what’s the point in me telling you things you already know? The answer’s been inside you all along… _Chara_.” 

[—DARKNESS—DARKER, YET DARKER—]

“C….Chara?” A god-awful wretching seizes your bowels—it’s like you’re going to barf up more than just food. You could honestly vomit out all of your intestines right now. You see your face in the giant mirror at your feet—Flowey is gliding across it with his horrible vine-like limbs, thorns scraping across the glass—your eyes are bleeding red and fucking _hell_ , it stings— “Inside—me—?” 

A spiderweb of cracks break through the mirror. You can hear the crashing, you feel the shards poking through your flesh but all you see when you look at your hands are gaping holes, holes in the center of your palms like the wounded Jesus Christ—shit, you’re going to Hell for all of this, aren’t you? Flowey’s vines are winding about your legs and the thorns tear holes in your—what, that’s not happening? Flowey lets out a shrill giggle and you feel the ground burning beneath you—the mud is sticking to you and it smells like metal on fire. You scream at him, but Flowey’s disappeared, vanished in the time it takes for you to remember that you were scratching at the giant wooden door—there’s these nasty claw marks dragging down the length of it, the kind of shit a bear or a wolf would do. Your fingernails are bleeding. That’s all that seems to be wrong with you now. 

Snow starts falling gently around you as you hear a voice in the distance. It rings out faintly like a sad church choir humming within the bowels of a cathedral. You’re drawn to it; you rise up from your knees and watch as a puddle of dark pond water glistens and expands. The closer you get, you realize a figure is trying to take shape, spitting fountains of black ooze erupting and exploding and then you feel a bony hand at your arm—

“ _kid_ —"

You gasp sharply and Sans’s hands are on your face, eyes droopy and exhausted with worry. “holy shit, kid, you scared the hell outta me—"

“Sans—"

“—we’re going home, come on.”

*

_“What IS your name?”_

_You answer. He repeats it with a smile. God, he looks just like his mother. “That’s a nice name.”_

_You sniffle. “Th-…thank you.”_

*

“you scared the hell outta me back there, kid.” 

“I’m sorry.” You’re wrapped up in blankets, holding a mug of tea Undyne brewed for you. She’s downstairs with Alphys and Mettaton, the both of them supervising her with Papyrus to see that she prepares an apple pie without the kitchen bursting into flames. The living room is a mess of sleeping bags and phone chargers and robot chargers—they all insisted upon staying at the house until you showed signs of recovery. They don’t say it, but they’re scared. They have no idea what’s happening, but as you stare at him from his spot on top of a sock pile across the room, you think Sans does.

“you were looking for him, weren’t you?”

You take a sip of tea. Tastes like toasted wildflowers and honey. “...I heard him, in Waterfall—he was asking me to find him.”

“he’s not the one doing this to you, is he?” He treads cautiously, asking this slowly. You shake your head.

“No, it’s not, it never was,” you comfort him, then inhale slowly. “It’s me, Sans. It’s my fault.” 

He looks up from the floor. “what? come on, sweetheart, that’s not—"

“The darkness,” you cut him off, insistent. You stare into the contents of your mug, watching the ripples. Flower petals are floating on top in the shape of a heart. “It’s been inside me all along.”

“darkness…” 

“The darkness he’s been trying to warn me about,” you say in a small voice. “Sans…I don’t know what to do.”

A pause. The skeleton looks thoughtfully at the wall behind you. “i think you do.” 

“What?” You slide off the bed, blankets falling as you set your tea on the desk. 

“you know what you have to do. but you feel too guilty to do it.” You swallow thickly, inching toward him across the carpet.

“Sans…I don’t want to leave you.”

“i know you don’t, sweetheart,” he says, lazy grin twitching downward. “i know you’re scared. but aren’t you more afraid of what’ll happen to you if you stay?”

You honestly weren't thinking about that. You're so selfish yet so unselfish at the same time--you were only thinking of him. Of Papyrus. Of protecting your friends from yourself. You're only scared that your idea won't work. But you're too tired to explain. He'll understand. You sigh, clutching his sleeve. “Sans…”

“hey. lemme tell you a story. it’s a good one.”

A weak smile pulls the corners of your mouth up. “Sure.”

“a while ago, i had this dream,” he starts, drawing circles with his metacarpals in your palm. “i was in the capital, waiting for somebody. when they got there, they…weren’t who i expected. i didn’t have to look at the dust on their shirt. i already knew what they’d done. i decided i wasn’t going to let them take the king too. so we fought. we fought, and just when i thought was going to die, i saw her.”

“Who?”

His eye twinkles yellow and blue. “you, kid. you.” 

Your eyes widen in realization. Your voice comes out in a wheeze. “What—what happened?” 

“i can’t remember what we said,” he confesses, thinking he’s disappointing you somewhat. “i just remember seeing you, holding you…and then waking up at my sentry post in the forest, wondering why my phone was alerting me for texts papyrus sent me three months earlier.”

Your brows knit together in a line as your throat tightens up. “Sans…you—"

“i thought it would make things complicated if i told you. but given all the excitement we’ve had lately,” he says with a wink, “i figured i’d come clean.” 

It’s not really that much of a surprise. Probably through another run, in another playthrough he told you—this isn’t really news. But somehow it still surprises you. Maybe you knew it would anyway. You grin helplessly and he chuckles.

“hehehe. but, that’s not exactly my point here--even though i can’t remember what we talked about, i had this feeling, when i met you for the first time at the bridge. i looked at you and i knew.” Sans pushes your bangs back, drinking in your expression, running his bones along the curve of your jawline as he talks quietly. “you weren’t just any other human. you’re special. i could hear gaster’s voice inside my head, telling me to protect you. i didn’t know what it meant, at first, but now i understand.”

You understand too. “The darkness…”

“you know what it is now, don’t you.”

“Chara…” Your gaze falls to the floor, losing focus on some old stain on the carpet. You don’t want to think about the hallucinations, but they haunt you, taunt you. Tell you that you can’t escape and you don’t want to believe it. That there's no way to save your friends--the monster has been you all along. But Sans’s voice pulls you back—

“listen, kiddo. i don’t remember much about timelines—i can’t remember all your playthroughs. but i do now that you, as you are right now…” He pulls you close, pressing his ribcage to your chest and you think it’s crazy, it can’t be possible but you swear, you can feel a heartbeat. You can’t help the tears welling up in your eyes. “god, you’re the best you that you’ve ever been. and i didn’t protect you because of some sense of duty, capiche?” 

“Sans,” is all you can manage to squeak out. He lets you go so he can look you in the face again.

“i hate making promises--but i hope that whatever you decide to do now…you’ll take care of yourself. because _somebody_ really cares about you.” 

You nod vigorously, wiping your eyes and smearing your makeup. “Then—I think I know what I’m going to do now.”

“made up your mind?”

“Yeah.”

“i see, then. i guess this is goodbye, huh?” His eyes are drooping, tiny white orbs dimming as he presses his skull to your forehead.

“No goodbyes. Just see-you-later,” you giggle, thinking of Papyrus as you nuzzle against him. “We’ll be together again. Honestly…I don’t think I could go through with anything now if I knew I wasn’t going to see you again.”

A tint of blue highlights his cheekbones. “hehehe. kid…” 

“Sans…” You hesitate a moment, still feeling the pulse from underneath his jacket against your chest. Or maybe that’s your own heart racing. But maybe you didn’t imagine it. He said he had one, after all. “I want to feel it again.”

His blush brightens, covering nearly all his face as you draw your lips closer to his teeth. “w-what?”

“Sans,” you breathe in shakily, “I know this isn’t goodbye but…”

His phalanges find your waistband and you think he’s getting the message. “but…”

“Can you touch me like it’s going to be…?”

*

The birds are tittering outside the palace windows as sunlight drips down through the cracks in the ceiling. There, a few feet ahead, King Asgore hunches over, royal purple cloak dragging behind him. You feel bad for stepping on the flowers, but they’re everywhere—the entire throne room is a garden. 

“Oh? Is someone there?” 

You want to say something, but you draw a blank. He’s about as giant as you expected him to be, but he sounds nothing like you’d imagined—genial, dulcet tones. Tender and mild. You can see great horns protruding from his forehead.

“Just a moment, just need to finish watering these flowers…ah, there we are.” Slowly, he turns to face you. “Howdy! How can I—"

He drops his watering can. Your heart sinks as tears drip down your cheek—he’s the same kind of monster as Toriel. 

“—Oh. Forgive me, you look just like…” His voice trails off. You knew what he was meaning to say. “I want so badly to ask you if you’d like a cup of tea, but…well, you know how it must be.”

Your voice finally finds you. “King Asgore…” 

“Dear child,” he shakes, inching backward, “you know what we must do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've got one last trip to the bone zone here and then this baby's getting put down for nap-nap. 
> 
> if you're looking forward to MORE porn from me, allow me to direct you to [my new fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5890258) which i'm excited about! i'll be continuing it once this one is finished. <33


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h e l l o folks omg i'm so sorry i've been away for a hot minute--was away on vacation and had to come down from being overtired and overstimulated but i'm excited to share more with you! i hope this chapter was worth waiting for :'') we're almost to the end!

Your blood runs like ice, chilled with fervor. With a soft sweeping sound, the familiar ghostly hand-like limbs surround you, gently, carefully tugging at your clothes. You keep your eyes locked on Sans, who in turn doesn’t look away from you either, just watches hungrily as the floating figures pull your top off and toss it to the side. One of the many-fingered ghosts unties the ribbons in your hair while another peels off your leggings, leaving you just in your underwear and skirt and feeling more naked than you’ve ever felt. Sans’s gaze doesn’t leave you as he stretches to switch off his makeshift flashlight-lamp. 

“Lights off?” you raise your eyebrows. He smirks back.

“i see better in the dark.” 

It’s like being hugged, almost, when the aqua aura gets a hold of your body and gravity pulls you up, only to knock you down on to the bed. You laugh, thrilled like you’re on a tower drop at a theme park and then the skeleton is on top of you, the limb-like figures morphing into elongated tendrils. They worm their way into your bra and you heave a sigh—they’re warm and cool on your skin at the same time as Sans drags his ecto-tongue across the plane of your stomach. You arch into his touch, moaning as the phantoms start wrapping themselves around your thighs and around the legs of the bed, like they’re tying you up. You push your hips up, grinning under the glow of cyan. 

“Nothing like some light bondage to set the mood,” you laugh nervously, squirming as the ghosts pin your arms above your head. Sans’s tongue is dripping sparkling fluids.

“if i remember correctly,” he teases, “you love this shit.”

You bite down on your tongue, your dampening panties clinging to your skin as your thighs twitch. Haha, he’s not wrong. You nod to him in a come-hither gesture, parting your mouth in an open invitation and he obliges, darting the Candy Phantom inside and letting it leak all down your chin. With your wrists bound, you can’t pull him closer, so you hope if you swing your hips around—ah, he’s pressed against you harder, something pushing into your mound— 

“you can ask for what you really want, sweetheart, i didn’t gag you,” he winks, tongue waggling across your teeth. Smart ass. Maybe next time you should make a point to gag _him_.

“I want you to fuck me,” you bite, staring daggers at him but laughing anyway. 

“with what?” he grins, his phalanges drawing a string of silvery goo from his glowing tongue before reaching up your skirt. You flinch—it feels too cold, but your wetness seems to melt it, your entrance loosens around his boney fingers— 

“With your Glowing Phantom Tenta-Cock,” you giggle, fully aware of how ridiculous you sound, but his shoulders jump with amusement.

“that’s a mouthful, kid—"

“Yeah it _was_ —"

“oh, so you’re making jokes in the bedroom—"

“ _Saaaans_ —"

He stops laughing, leaning forward to really look at your face. He tilts his head, retracting his tongue for a beat. “i’ll give you whatever you want, sweetheart, just tell me you’re sure. tell me one more time.”

“Sans,” you breathe, your walls clenching, “I want you inside me.”

“hehehe—" he flicks his wrist, the glowing blue light from his pelvis now glimmering with an odd sparkle, materializing into a cock that didn’t quite look exactly as you saw it last—it’s got a head like a human penis, but it’s wobbly and lengthy more like a sea creature’s limb. No suction cups though, not like an octopus or something, and it’s not intimidatingly thick—you’re not worried that it won’t fit. You’re so wet and open you could probably take a whole foot inside you right now anyway— “you got it, kid.”

You clench your jaw, watching with baited breath as the cock disappears inside of you, Sans chuckling in satisfaction as the heat of the tendril turns your inner walls to molten lava. Fuck, it’s warm, slimy in the right way—your abdominal muscles twitch and the monster is utterly captivated, fixated on the way your skin crawls under gooseflesh. He groans, deeply and carnivorously as he works into a quick pace, reading your slack jaw and glazed eyes as a signal to move it faster. 

“how’s it feel, doll face?” he rasps and you’re hoping he’s not expecting an eloquent answer because _fuck_ is all you can find yourself capable of thinking. His magic aura is glowering around you and everything looks and even feels blue; cool, electric blue, inside of you, outside. Thunder jolts through your veins, shocks shooting through to your every nerve with every thrust and his lazy spouts of pleasure and encouragement start sounding so distant, like you’re falling out of element, your soul tearing away from what’s real and stepping foot into a nirvana. There is no other feeling in your heart now other than this magic swallowing you whole—no word for the beatitude, the ecstasy. It feels like Sans is pouring the entirety of his essence inside of you, like every laugh he’s ever had in his life has gained a physical form that now exists only to please you, to make sure you feel like you’re sitting atop the universe. 

“Sans,” you hear yourself whisper, elated tears pooling in the dips of your neck, sweat veiling your brow— “I think I—"

The vine-like ghosts have backed off. Your wrists are free but your hands feel frozen above your head, your thighs are aching spread apart so far but you hardly notice, your whole body is still ablaze. Sans’s bones are alight in azure, white beams in his eyes wide on tenterhooks— 

Galaxies explode in sapphire behind your eyes when you cum, Sans groaning as the Tenta-Cock fills you up with ropes of glittering goo, leaking stars and planets from your thighs onto the sheets. Coming down feels like falling from a too-high tree; your head hits the pillow with a thud and the air crashes into your lungs as you gulp for air like you’ve been drowning. Your clit twitches uncomfortably as Sans pulls himself out, the Magic Cock evanescing away as he wipes the sweat off the top of his skull, bones heaving as he crawls closer to you.

“you uh,” he huffs, smile wicked and wide, “you have fun?”

“Yeah,” you mewl, still trying to find your air. You push your hair from your eyes and it’s soaking wet. “Yeah, that was—fuck—”

“yeah, that was a helluva fuck,” he agrees and you jab his ribs. “you sure you still wanna leave after that?”

It’s hard to swallow the next lump in your throat. You know it’s just a joke, but. The hurt in his eyes is still easy to see despite his crooked grin. You reach up to stroke across his mandible. 

“You know I wouldn’t go if I wasn’t sure.”

He leans into your touch. You sit up, cradling his skull as his bony fingers brush your lips. “i know. i know you’re gonna do whatever you feel like you need to, no matter what.”

“Sans,” you start softly. He meets your gaze without hesitation and you feel a new confidence from his stare. “Do you trust me?”

His next laugh fills the cracks in his grin like cement on a new pavement. “i do, kid. i can finally say that i do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more to go and i'm s a d but i'm ready, i hope you all enjoy <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cried writing this. lmao i can't believe this is D O N E

_“D-Do not be afraid, I am with you.”_

_“My dear…you must stay determined!”_

_“We’re with you all the way, kid!”_

_“s-s-somehow…i know you can do it!”_

_“HUMAN! WE’RE YOUR FRIENDS! FRIENDS ARE ALWAYS THERE FOR EACH OTHER!”_

_“hehehe…you got this, sweetheart. go get ‘em.”_

*

A face that you’ve only seen in dreams appears before you as unending darkness wraps around you. He cries, his sniffles sounding so far away even though he’s standing only a few feet before you. The space you’re locked in feels both miles long and uncomfortably tiny. A wilting golden flower lay twitching at his furry feet. 

The Underground’s forgotten prince. 

Your best friend in another life. 

He calls you by your name. Not hers. Not Chara. Your name. You start crying and he cries too and the two of you sob unproductively together until he finally takes initiative.

“You’ve had such a long journey,” he says to you, awestruck. “You did something I never thought could be done—you saved me.”

You shake your head, tears on your hands and neck. “No, Asriel—I didn’t, no matter how hard I tried—why? Why were you the only one I couldn’t save?”

He wrings his hands together in yours. “It’s not your fault. I’m not real anymore—the real me died a really long time ago. Only the bad parts of me are left, in that flower.”

The both of you stare grimly down at the tattered plant. 

“It’s not fair,” you whimper. “It’s not fair—I wanted to—you—"

“No, listen to me,” he encourages you, half-smiling, “after all this time, all the pain and suffering I’ve caused can finally come to an end—"

“It wasn’t you!” you argue, sounding younger than he is. “It wasn’t you—"

Asriel’s ears swing with a shake of his head. “I did a lot of strange, horrible things as a flower, but thanks to you, it’s all over.” 

You clutch his little paws, tears wetting your hands. 

“Listen,” he croaks, “I have to release all these souls inside me, but once I do that, I—"

“—you’ll be Flowey again,” you finish the thought, angered and upset although you know it’s not up to him. He nods sadly. 

“Yeah. But before that happens—I know it doesn’t absolve me, I know it doesn’t change all the terrible things I’ve done—I’m going to do it. I’m going to break the barrier. And then you’re gonna bring everyone home, okay?”

“Asriel,” you breathe, searching his face as you try to get yourself to stop crying. “Asriel, wait.”

“Yeah?” he asks softly, furrowing his brow. 

“Can I tell them?” you half-gurgle, blinking away tears. “Can I tell them I saw you?”

A sorrowful, toothy smile stretches wide on his furry, tiny face as he nods. “Tell them I love them—and that I can finally rest now.”

“Okay,” you whimper. You pull him close for a hug, rubbing his shoulders, and he cries just a little bit more. You stay like that for God knows how long until he pulls away, face bright with confidence and hope.

“You’re gonna do a great job, you know?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Everyone will be there for you.”

“Asriel…”

“It’s time, my friend.”

“Asriel, are you—?”

He gives you one more innocent, hopeful smile before spreading his arms wide and heavenward—

“Goodbye.”

“Asri—!!”

A blinding white light. You cover your face with your arm and hear a colossal crash; it sounds like a thousand mirrors shattering all at once—the barrier is actually being broken. A hot, gusting wind blusters around you; a rainbow of lights flash past over your head and you can feel laughter and love exploding in fireworks as the souls return back from whence they came. They’re so loud, but then there’s immediate quiet, like they simply vanished. A sudden weird sensation like feeling ocean waves draw back sand from the shore brushes past your feet—you can’t tell if you’ve just moved, or if you’re still floating in obsolete space, but everything has gone white around you.

Asriel’s gone. Nobody is anywhere to be seen—you’re alone. And yet, you don’t feel like you are. There are strange, humming noises—you feel something like the wind howling. A gentle breeze gusts at your back as you start to realize—there’s a presence here with you. Your heart swells, eyes stinging—you know who it must be. You’ve been waiting for so long. 

You turn around.

[YOU CAME BACK.]

*

Your breath hitches as you tilt your head up to meet him. His towering, ghoul-like figure wavers in space before you, deep-set sockets leaking darkness in the cracks of his face. His neck stretches out of his white cowl, the ends of his longcoat oozing out a heavy, bubbling black slime. If you didn’t know any better, you’d be so frightened—but you know him. You do. So very well. 

“Gaster…” You feel yourself smile and reach out to touch his long, spindly fingers. “It’s you…it’s really you.” 

The tiny orbs in his sockets are glowing. The forgotten doctor extends his arms to you. [MY DARLING GIRL…IT WARMS WHAT IS LEFT OF MY HEART TO SEE YOU AGAIN.]

“Gaster,” you sigh, heart heavy like lead in the pit of your chest. Your fingers feel warm in the holes in his hands. “This should be the first time I’ve ever met you…but it’s not, is it.”

[NO, IT IS NOT.] 

Your eyes start to water—before now you’ve only seen him in shadows on the walls, behind trees in the forest, in bathroom mirrors and kitchen sinks. He’s a stranger to you as you are in this moment, but not to the you of timelines past. Looking at him here, now, you can remember stumbling through hidden doorways and unlocking secret chests to find him. You can remember the veils between SAVE files, between each of your RESETS—he was always there, waiting for you. Giving you courage to go on and make things right with little words, or none at all. No meeting was ever the same and you cannot remember each one, but you remember his warmth. You remember that he loved you. He loves you still. You feel it blooming in your very SOUL.

You sniffle, nuzzling your cheek to his hands. His face is completely warped, nothing like you can remember seeing before. Resembling nothing neither human nor monster. But you can tell he’s so moved by your presence. He’s so glad to see you.

“You’ve been looking for me all this time, haven’t you?” you croak. Your body is shrouded in the shadows of his coat as he embraces you the best way he knows how to.

[I HAVE,] he says. [I HAVE BEEN WITH YOU HERE SO MANY TIMES.]

“This place,” you start, bewildered, “I wonder if I’ve ever told you before—that it reminds me of an airport terminal on the surface? The blank space between timelines…what did we call it, the Veil?”

Black goop trickles from the crevasse of his mouth as it turns upward. It’s like he’s smiling at you. [YES. THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT.]

Panic rises in your guts as you consider yourself. “Wait—If I’m here, then—does that mean I—did I screw up? Did I make another loop? Is everyone okay?” 

[YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO HEAR THAT YOUR CURRENT LINE OF REALITY HAS NOT BEEN ALTERED,] he reassures you, gently. [EVERYONE IS EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT THEM. AND THE BARRIER…]

Your eyes widen. The barrier—Asriel. It wasn’t a dream—you didn’t imagine it. It really happened. You stare up at the doctor, tears pouring down your cheeks. “The barrier—!”

The timbre of his voice reverberates through you, echoing through your ribcage and behind your eyes as he seems to grin even wider. [THE BARRIER IS BROKEN, CHILD. YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED. YOU HAVE SET THEM FREE.]

“N-No,” you correct him, shaking your head mournfully. You keep thinking of the innocent princeling. “No, it wasn’t me, it was him, Gaster—it was Asriel—"

[ASRIEL WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FREED IF IT WERE NOT FOR YOU,] he tells you. [ONLY YOU COULD HAVE AWAKENED THE FORGOTTEN PRINCE. YOU KNOW WHY THAT IS, DO YOU NOT?]

You search his face, blue and orange lights faintly flickering in and out of the gaping holes in his misshapen skull. Somehow you feel he’s right, that you do know already, like the two of you have had this conversation before. Sticky goop is enveloping your arms and shoulders but it feels more like you’re sinking into a raincloud. You blink up at him with shining eyes. “Why?”

It’s the answer you were afraid of. [CHARA.]

“Chara,” you repeat throatily. “The darkness…Gaster, tell me—how? How is that? I don’t understand—”

[BECAUSE IN A WAY,] he explains, solemnly, [SHE _IS_ YOU.]

You don’t believe what you’re hearing. You see the little child’s unmoving smile in the mirror in your head. Clinging to his robes, you shake your head. “But how? How can that be?”

[BECAUSE YOUR SOULS ARE ONE IN THE SAME.] Gaster bows his head, now mere inches from yours. [RECYCLED BY THE FABRIC OF TIME AND THE WILL OF THE HEAVENS. HER SOUL WAS TOO IMPURE TO PASS ON, SO IT WANDERED. WAITING. AND IT CHOSE YOU.]

You can hardly make sense of it. You hang onto him for dear life, quivering against him as his body wavers in and out of vision. “Gaster…whenever I got angry, or frustrated, or too determined…she was there, wasn’t she? She told me I was never in control…” 

[NOT WHEN YOU ALLOWED YOUR ANGER TO DRIVE YOU,] he tells you. [DEAR CHILD…YOU WERE NEVER AWARE WHAT TRUE POWER YOUR DETERMINATION HELD. WHENEVER YOU BECAME TOO AMBITIOUS, TOO VIOLENT…YOU MADE YOURSELF SUSCEPTIBLE TO HER EVIL. YOU LOST YOURSELF TO HER.]

“So we were right, after all,” you say again, gasping as you realize. “It was her, all along—"

His voice heightens in pitch and it rings in your ears. [YES, THE DARKNESS…MY CHILD, YOU ARE HUMAN. HUMANKIND IS NEITHER PURE NOR INCULPABLE. AND YET HERE YOU ARE, STANDING INNOCENTLY BEFORE ME, UNSULLIED BY THE TEMPTATIONS OF POWER…]

“Gaster,” you whimper, lips quivering, “even if I get everyone back to the surface—even if I’ve made a happy ending for them—will I ever really be free from her? Can Chara ever come back?”

[MY DEAR,] he says slowly, deliberately, making absolute sure you are listening and listening closely— [THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH LOVE IN YOUR SOUL AS IT STANDS BEFORE ME FOR HER TO EVER RETURN. YOU HAVE ALREADY CONQUERED THE DARKNESS. FREEDOM IS YOURS NOW, TOO.]

You crumble before him, dissolving to tears as he sheaths your body in his oily shadows. You weep blithely, enervated and sapped of all dignity and composure. He holds you as the shining purple threads of time create new seams in the glittering fabric of the universe. You can hear the birds chirping outside Asgore’s throne room, hear the golden flowers bustling as their roots soak up fresh water. You know your friends and their friends and all of monster kind is waiting for you, but you know what’s coming next, and it’s the last thing you want. You can’t take him back with you and you don’t want to accept it. You don’t want to leave this very spot, you don’t want to close the door on the Veil forever. The doctor must sense it, because he lifts your chin with a trembling finger. 

[I AM GLAD I WAS ABLE TO TALK TO YOU LIKE THIS AGAIN,] he coos, echoing through invisible chambers. [I AM SO HAPPY I COULD SEE YOU SUCCEED. I’VE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN YOU.]

“Gaster, I couldn’t have done it without you,” you keep crying. “I’m so glad—Gaster—"

[I CAN FEEL THE TWINKLING OF A THOUSAND STARS,] he says suddenly, vaguely, a gooey, purple tongue-like tentacle lolling from the chasm of his mouth. [THE SPACE IN OUR VEIL IS CONSTRICTING—MY DARLING…IT IS TIME FOR ME LEAVE YOU.]

“No,” you protest, eyes bloodshot. You shake your head violently and seize his dripping arms. You feel him seeping through between your fingers. “No, Gaster, I won’t leave you, please, come back with me—"

[I AM ONE PART OF A BEING NO LONGER WHOLE,] he tells you sadly. [I MUST ATONE FOR THE SINS I HAVE COMMITTED. I MUST WATCH AS THE WORLD KEEPS TURNING WITHOUT ME.]

“No, I won’t accept that,” you argue, blubbering like a child. You know it’s impossible, but maybe if you cry a little more— “No, I’m taking you back with me, I’m taking you home—"

[MY DARLING, THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF ME TO TAKE BACK,] he tries to explain, [THE ME YOU MEET WITH AT THIS VERY MOMENT IS NOT THE GASTER YOU HAVE MET HERE BEFORE, NOR WILL IT BE SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO PASS THROUGH HERE AGAIN—]

The faint glint of azure in his leaking socket flashes once more before completely going out and you cough out childish sobs.

[—BUT I AM HOPING THAT THE ME YOU SPEAK WITH NOW IS THE LAST GASTER YOU WILL EVER ENCOUNTER. I HOPE THAT WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE…YOU WILL NOT COME BACK.]

“No, I don’t want this,” you wail fruitlessly, heart-broken and tired. “There’s gotta be some way to help you, to save you—"

[YOU ALREADY HAVE, MY SWEET CHILD,] he assures you, sloppily tangling his fingers in your hair. [YOU ALREADY HAVE.]

“Will I never really—" you whimper, you can feel your voice failing you and it’s so hard to keep talking through all the tears— “—will nobody really ever see you again? If we all leave here—will you be trapped? Forever?”

[MY EXISTENCE IS NOW AN ANOMALY IN THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM. WHETHER OR NOT ANY BEING WILL EVER CROSS ANY PATH OF MINE AGAIN, I CANNOT SAY.]

“Gaster,” you fight to breathe steadily, “I don’t want to leave you—I _really_ don’t want to leave you—”

[I LEFT IN THE FIRST PLACE, MY DEAR,] he drones sadly. [I LEFT SANS. I LEFT ASGORE AND ALPHYS AND THE ENTIRE UNDERGROUND. I TURNED MY BACK ON THOSE I LOVED. IT IS ONLY RIGHT THAT NOW, THEY WILL GO ON WITHOUT ME.]

“Gaster…” You don’t know what to do, you have no idea how you’re going to leave here, if you can—the last thing you want to do is turn your back on him. You stare deeply into the bottomless pits of his eyes and push yourself against him, prodding the elongated tentacle still dangling from his mouth— “I don’t want to forget you. I’ll never forget you.”

[AS LONG AS YOU HARBOR A LOVE FOR ME, YOU WILL NEVER FORGET ME.]

You don’t know how much time you have left. You seize his head, wrapping your lips awkwardly about his exuding tongue in a strange yet amorous kiss. The velvety darkness of his shredding robes envelope your body in a gentle caress as you refuse to accept this as your final parting. Heat pools in your center as you’re lifted and cradled by a multitude of vine-like limbs, weightless and warm against your gooseflesh. You don’t want this to be goodbye. He meets your fervor ardently and lovingly and you’re sure he doesn’t want to let go either—

But he sets you down abruptly, the extensions of his shadows retracting as his body twitches and jolts. He makes a horrible, reptilian sound—the inky black sockets of his eyes seem to be melting even more. You try to grab onto him, to try to hold him together, but he’s fading in and out of your vision—“No—wait—don’t—"

[M-MY DARLING—I’M SORRY—]

“Wait! Please, God—don’t go—please come with me, Gaster—"

[I—CAN’T—I’M SO SORRY—]

“Gaster!”

[PLEASE TELL SANS—HOW PROUD I AM—]

A blast of white light. You feel like you’re being drawn backwards through clouds; you try to run forward but you quickly keep being pulled back, back farther, faster, faster until—

You land on your back with a thwump. 

*

You’re laying down now, atop what feels like a bed of flowers. Your head aches, but not as badly as your back. You try to think about where you were before, and all you can see in your mind’s eye is a towering, dark figure, with a voice like a sad church choir. You can’t remember much of what it said, but crying is all you want to do. But you’re so tired. Opening your eyes doesn’t feel like it will be a thing that happens anytime soon, so. You’ll just lay right here, you guess. You’ll get up eventually. You’ll start letting the tears flow at some point, once you wake up and figure out where the fuck you are, once you find out your friends are—

"i-i-i-s she—?”

"I don't think so--"

Wait, are they—? Those voices…

"She looks like she's sleeping--"

"SHALL WE TRY TO WAKE HER? HUMAN!!! WAKE UP!!"

"PAPYRUS! SHUT UP OR YOU'LL WAKE HER UP!"

"I THOUGHT THAT'S WHAT WE WERE TRYING TO DO!!"

Is that—are they—here?…Is it really— 

"Now, now, let's calm down, everyone, we mustn't get ahead of ourselves--"

"i d-d-don't see any wounds, i think sh-she might be okay--"

"Sans, what do you think?"

—…your friends. 

It’s a struggle, but you open your eyes, and…it’s them.

They’re right here. 

"…hey, sweetheart. ’s better places to take a nap than right on the flowers."

You sit up, looking up at the faces in a circle around you. Toriel, Papyrus—Undyne, Alphys. Asgore. Sans. They’re okay. They’re here and they’re okay. 

They came for you. You remember. 

“Did you have a nice nap?” Toriel asks you innocently. You’re fixated on her calm, gentle face. And then it happens: you explode into tears.

“o-oh d-d-dear—"

“Oh my, have I said something wrong?”

“WHY IS SHE CRYING?”

“You’re here,” you croak, clutching Toriel’s dress robes. She kneels down to hold you, combing her claws through your mess of hair. “You’re okay. Oh my God. I missed you.”

“WE DIDN’T GO ANYWHERE?”

“SHUT UP PAPYRUS!”

“There, there, my child, it’s okay, you are safe now—you are with us—"

“Tori—" you’re blubbering, and you stop yourself, sniffling hard before looking back up at her. You correct yourself. “—Mom. I’m so sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry.”

The old lady blushes, big soggy tears trickling down her furry face, but she coughs— “O-Oh, sweet child—"

“You two need to STOP IT!” Undyne scolds the both of you, red in the gills, “YOU’RE GONNA SET ME OFF TOO!”

“I’m so sorry,” you go on like a broken record and they keep telling you it’s okay. Nobody remembers anything—a talking flower and then a blast of white light, and the next thing they know, the barrier is broken. But you know what really happened—you can’t explain right now, it’s all too much. There’s too much and no good place to start. You look at Sans over Toriel’s shoulder and he winks at you, just knowing. On second thought, maybe you don’t really need to explain. It was a different time, a different space. A different you. The you that the Queen of Monsters holds in her arms now is not the you that drew a knife to hers or anyone’s throats—the you that embraced Chara is a forgotten fragment of a lost time. You are free, now. And monsters are free. 

Your friends tell you they’re ready to go up to the surface whenever you are. They follow you through the open door, help each other climb out—and your little group is greeted by the rising sun. Papyrus can finally see the sun. The air is so fresh and organic and it’s then you realize how stifling it was underground. They’re talking amongst themselves about a plan, about helping the other monsters out, about what their next step is, but you’re not thinking of that. 

You’re thinking about Asriel, about how much you hope that the good part of him can truly rest in peace now. You wonder if you really should tell Toriel and Asgore that you saw him—you told him you would. But maybe not now—you’ll know when it’s time to. You think about a man in shadows who can’t speak without his hands. You think about love, what it truly means to love someone, miss someone more than anything. His name crosses your mind and you find yourself whispering it aloud. Gaster. 

“you say somethin, kid?”

You don’t notice til Sans looks worried that you’ve started crying again. Your face doesn’t feel hot and your eyes don’t burn, but tears are rolling down your cheeks. You take Sans’s bony hand in your own, speaking just loud enough for only him to hear.

“He loves you,” you tell him through your tenderest smile. “He’s proud of you.” 

Sans says nothing, just smiles widely at you for a few moments before turning his head back toward the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for going on this journey with me.
> 
> this is most definitely not the end of undertale writing for me so, no goodbyes <3


End file.
